By Hans Nichols
Axios
March 26, 2024
Republican David McCormick is launching one of the first general election Senate ads of 2024, with a biographical spot that focuses on the glory and grit of high school wrestling in Pennsylvania.
Why it matters: McCormick — who was pilloried by his 2022 GOP primary opponent for having been CEO of Connecticut-based Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds — is spending early to tell his Pennsylvania story on his terms.
- McCormick hopes to draw on his years as a high school competitor — which helped propel him to West Point — to avoid getting pinned down as a Connecticut carpetbagger by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.), who’s seeking his fourth term.
- “Pennsylvania wrestling taught me to do the hard thing: Hard work. Hard choices,” McCormick tells the camera, with cut-away shots to newspaper clippings of his high school triumphs.
- “That’s not what we get from Washington. The career politicians don’t do the hard work.”
The ad is part of a seven-figure buy that will run across Pennsylvania and include spots during the NCAA basketball tournament, according to a McCormick campaign adviser.
Zoom in: McCormick lost a vicious GOP primary in 2022 to Trump-backed Mehmet Oz, who went on to lose to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.).
- This time Republicans have cleared the field for McCormick, allowing him to square off with Casey months ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
- McCormick is one of the GOP’s best-capitalized challengers. His campaign and related committees raised $5.4 million last quarter and McCormick kicked in another $1 million of his own money.
- A super PAC supporting him, with big Wall Street names including Steve Schwarzman and Ken Griffin, has raised $18 million.
- Casey raised $3.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. He is criss-crossing the state, picking up endorsements and hitting McCormick for his old investment firm’s ties to China.
Zoom out: Pennsylvania is one of several Senate races that will determine whether Republicans take control of the chamber from Democrats, who now have a slim majority.
- In the last two presidential cycles, Senate races have closely tracked the presidential contest. That dynamic, if it holds, will tie McCormick’s fate to former President Trump’s.
- A CNN poll released last week had Trump and President Biden tied at 46% in Pennsylvania.
- Earlier this month, a survey from Emerson College Polling/The Hill had Casey up 45-41, with 14% undecided.
The bottom line: Pennsylvania’s Senate race — with two big media markets (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh) running ads and the Biden-Trump rematch as a backdrop — will be among the most expensive in the country.
- It’s likely to be a political wrestling match.
- And as McCormick says in his ad: “On the wrestling mat, there’s no place to hide.”