By John Cole | Pennsylvania Capital-Star
Speaking to a group of canvassers for a conservative organization backing his candidacy, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick stressed the stakes of the election in one of Pennsylvania’s premier purple counties.
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“This is the most important election in the country, the most expensive, the most high profile,” McCormick said at a Courtyard by Marriott in Falls Township. “You’re sitting right now at ground zero, and I cannot do it without you.”
Most of McCormick’s remarks echoed his stump speeches from his ongoing campaign to unseat three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). The group of canvassers he talked with on Tuesday morning work or volunteer for Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action, the conservative group backed by the Koch organization, and LIBRE Action, its sister organization aimed at courting Latino voters.
AFP Action endorsed McCormick in 2023, before he formally joined the race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. The group was backing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for president prior to her exiting the race and is still not backing a candidate in the race for the White House.
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Emily Greene, AFP Action senior adviser, said on Tuesday that the organization has knocked on 600,000 doors thus far and is on a mission to reach one million of Pennsylvania’s registered swing voters in their effort to boost McCormick’s candidacy.
“They can’t mute us. They can’t throw us away like a mailer,” Greene said. “We are there as human beings, pleading to them that we can get this economy back on track if we elect Dave McCormick to the U.S. Senate.”
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Speaking to reporters following her speech, Greene said AFP Action has 230 canvassers across all 67 counties, but is predominantly focused on three counties.
“We’re focused on Bucks County, Montgomery and Allegheny County,” Greene said in response to a question from the Capital-Star. “We know that those three counties are going to make or break statewide elections. Particularly right here, where we are in Bucks County, all eyes are on this county here.”
Of those three counties, Bucks County is expected to be the closest in the 2024 election.
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During Democrat John Fetterman’s 5-point Senate victory in 2022 over Republican Mehmet Oz, he won Bucks County by 7 points, while he won the other two counties by double digits.
However, in 2018, Casey defeated Republican U.S. Congressman Lou Barletta by 13 points, carrying Bucks County by 14 points, just one point off of his margin of victory statewide.
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In 2016, the last time a Republican won a U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey defeated Democrat Katie McGinty by a single point statewide. However, Toomey won Bucks County by 5 points, while Democrat Hillary Clinton carried the county over Republican Donald Trump by just under 1 point.
Bucks County has a history of ticket splitting and AFP Action is expecting a sizable number of voters in Pennsylvania to do so in the 2024 election.
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“We anticipate anywhere from 5 to 13% of likely Pennsylvania voters to split their vote,” Greene said. “So with a projected 7 million voters in this November’s election, that could be anywhere from 300,000 to 800,000 voters. So certainly that’s going to make or break an election.”
When Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020 by just over 1 point, Biden carried Bucks County by 4 points.
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McCormick said he’s running a campaign that’s “authentic” to him, but acknowledged that his and Trump’s campaign are linked.
“President Trump will help a lot, I think, in getting out the vote for key Republicans, that’s part of the strategy to win,” McCormick said to reporters. “I’m hopeful that I can be helpful to him in the sense that I’m hoping I can appeal to voters that will take a second look at him, that might not otherwise.”
“It’s going to be very, very close,” he added. “We’re certainly aligned. I’m running my campaign. I’m running a campaign that is both authentic to me, and which I think will appeal to voters across our commonwealth, but I’m super hopeful he’ll be successful, and that I will be too.”
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Recent polling seems to indicate that a chunk of voters are planning to split their ticket in Pennsylvania.
A CBS News poll released Sunday showed Harris and Trump tied at 50% each with likely voters in the Keystone State, while Casey led McCormick by 7 points.
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Another group of voters the organization believes has the ability to make or break the election are Latino voters.
LIBRE Action Adviser Jennie Dallas said that of the 1 million Hispanic residents in Pennsylvania, 600,000 are registered to vote. She told reporters that the area of swing Latino voters they are targeting is the Lehigh Valley, including Allentown, Hazleton, Scranton, the 222 corridor, Lancaster and Reading.
“We’re hitting those major Latino areas,” Dallas said.
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According to 2020 exit polling, 69% of Latino voters in Pennsylvania voted for Biden, while 27% voted for Trump. During Casey’s most successful reelection bid in 2018, he won 65% of Latino voters, while Barletta won 27%.
Despite those margins, polling this cycle has shown that Republicans have made some marginal gains with Latino voters nationwide.
“The fact of the matter is that Latinos are very conservative by nature, like we love our families, we love God, we have values,” Dallas said in response to a question about the recent shift towards the Republican Party. “And well, right now, I think all those values are right on the table right now.”
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The Casey campaign has also put a focus on Latino voters through various events throughout the commonwealth.
“David McCormick is as desperate for Trump’s approval as he is to convince Pennsylvanians he lives here. But Trump’s assessment of McCormick as the ‘candidate of special interests’ and money manager for China is as true today as the day he said it,” said TaNisha Cameron, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
Greene and Dallas both said the issue they are hearing the most from voters at the doors is inflation.
On Tuesday, Greene said AFP Action would be knocking on doors in Levittown and Bensalem, located in lower Bucks County.
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Several national ratings outlets, like the Cook Political Report, rate the Senate race as “leans Democratic,” between Casey and McCormick, while the presidential race is a “toss-up.”
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