The Casey team is banking on an increasingly narrow strategy of relying on outstanding provisional and military ballots from the City of Brotherly Love.
Political insiders like Dennis Roddy, a former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist, say Casey’s strategy is unlikely to close the gap, as provisional ballots in the city are often challenged with good reason.
“A lot of those provisional ballots are people who are not registered to vote, perhaps not even eligible to vote.
Notably, Casey called on Donald Trump to concede the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Other outlets, such as NBC and The Hill’s Decision Desk, have not yet called the race, waiting for the provisional ballots to be counted despite Casey’s near-impossible math.
BETHLEHEM and Pittsburgh, Pa. Sen. Bob Casey is in shock after losing to Republican Senator-elect Dave McCormick in his bid for a fourth term. He is holding onto the remote hope that Philadelphia’s unaccounted-for ballots will provide the approximately 36,000 votes he needs to win.
Relying on the City of Brotherly Love’s unresolved provisional and military ballots is a strategy that the Casey team is increasingly relying on. The Philadelphia County Board of Elections was sued by McCormick’s campaign as a result of that plan in order to guarantee that at least one Republican watches the vote-counting procedure and that their campaign could contest provisional ballots collectively rather than one at a time.
Casey’s approach is unlikely to close the gap, according to political insiders like Dennis Roddy, a former columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, because provisional ballots in the city are frequently challenged with valid reasons.
Many of the individuals on those provisional ballots are either unregistered voters or possibly ineligible voters. Roddy told The Post, “This is a longstanding Philadelphia tradition,” referring to the 1977 discovery by the Pennsylvania Crime Commission that Nikita Kruschev, Richard Nixon, Andy Warhol, and Clark Kent were all registered voters in the city.
Roddy went on, “This [is] what we call goddamn nonsense.”. “The goal here is to ensure that those casting ballots are, in fact, eligible to do so. “”.
On Friday morning, McCormick campaign political consultant Mark Davin Harris dismissed inquiries regarding the lawsuit process as “nonsense” and criticized the Casey campaign for feigning a future on X/Twitter.
“Provisionals will be distributed roughly 50/50 among the candidates throughout the state.”. Harris wrote, “There are only 20,000 in Philadelphia, that’s all,” pointing to McCormick’s sizable lead and the exceptional Election Day ballots from Cambria County, which leans deeply red.
The “race is not over,” according to emails from Casey’s fundraising channels sent Friday morning, almost eighteen hours after the Associated Press declared the race for McCormick, and included links for financial contributions, giving the impression that the senator is still running for office.
Notably, Casey urged Donald Trump to give President Joe Biden the 2020 election. “The president should do what every president who has been defeated has done in the past,” he then contended. “.”.
Before the AP declared the race in favor of McCormick on Thursday afternoon, the campaign took a victory lap. Despite Casey’s nearly impossible math, other media outlets, including NBC and The Hill’s Decision Desk, have not yet called the election, preferring to wait for the provisional ballots to be counted.
At a Friday morning victory press conference in Pittsburgh, McCormick thanked the electorate for choosing him and pledged to work with Democratic candidates Governor Josh Shapiro and new Pennsylvania Senate colleague John Fetterman to represent the entire Keystone State.
Despite the heated exchanges between the two during the campaign, McCormick has shown some sympathy for Casey as he continues to fight for his seat.
Referring to his 940-vote defeat to Mehmet Oz in the 2022 Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, which was postponed for more than two weeks, McCormick laughed and remarked, “While we need to move forward with the people’s business, I also recognize what it’s like to lose a close election.”.
He even thanked Casey as “a senator who served Pennsylvania with honor” and expressed empathy for his reluctance to give up so easily. The senator-elect also mentioned that he spoke with President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday.
Currently leading by over 36,000 votes, McCormick is still within the 0.5 percent margin that Pennsylvania automatically requires a recount.
