GOP Senate contenders aren’t shy about wanting Trump’s approval. But in Pennsylvania, it’s awkward
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Since becoming the biggest force in Republican politics nearly a decade ago, Donald Trump has played a prominent role in U.S. Senate races, using his vast public platform and loyal support base to shape which GOP incumbents align. run for re-election and which contenders are nominated.
This year, with control of the U.S. Senate at stake, potential nominees in the Senate battlegrounds of Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio are supporting Trump in the Republican Party’s presidential primaries, campaigning for him or otherwise they seek his approval.
But that won’t happen in Pennsylvania, where an awkward dance between likely partners at the top of the ticket will almost certainly continue until the music stops in November.
There, the likely Republican candidate David McCormick and Trump seem to ignore each other. They have a complicated relationship that Democrats say is fraught with danger for McCormick, and pollsters say his climb against an incumbent is much steeper.
“It’s a fascinating relationship to observe,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown. “They are not a natural fit in terms of their policy positions and their rhetorical styles, and of course, given Trump’s support of one of McCormick’s opponents in 2022, there is a history there. And how do you navigate, that becomes the question.”
McCormick – a wealthy former hedge fund executive and once a senior official in President George W. Bush’s administration – has no major primary opposition, is popular among party leaders and does not need Trump’s help in raising funds.
But he is trying to topple Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, the son of a former governor and the best-known political name in Pennsylvania.
For Democrats, Pennsylvania is a must if they want to somehow retain control of the Senate and help President Joe Biden stay in the White House. Biden’s unpopularity — even in Pennsylvania, where Biden was born and often has roots in Philadelphia sports teams and campaigns — rivals Trump’s, and the presidential race will weigh heavily on both McCormick and Casey, one of Biden’s strongest allies in the Congress.
For McCormick, there’s the added baggage of Trump’s unpopularity among the moderate voters McCormick wants to win over — not to mention the tongue-lashing Trump employed as he worked to defeat McCormick in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested 2022 primary for the US Senate.
McCormick — like others in the GOP’s seven-way Republican primary to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey — had sought Trump’s endorsement. According to McCormick’s account, Trump told McCormick during their meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that in order to win the primary, McCormick would have to say the 2020 election was stolen.
McCormick said he declined. Three days later, Trump endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz and then repeatedly attacked McCormick.
In one setting, a rally in western Pennsylvania days before the 2022 primaries, Trump told the crowd that McCormick is “not a MAGA,” using the acronym for his Make America Great Again campaign slogan.
He then mocked McCormick for working at a company – the hedge fund – that “managed money for communist China,” describing him in the next breath as “the candidate of special interests and globalists and the Washington establishment.”
McCormick lost to Oz by just 950 votes — a loss he has acknowledged Trump likely contributed to — before Oz then lost to Democrat John Fetterman by 5 points.
Still, McCormick’s allies say he harbored no hard feelings, and he hasn’t criticized Trump for that episode — or anything else, really — since.
But Trump hasn’t walked back his previous comments — and that could happen to McCormick.
“It’s definitely a problem for McCormick,” said Pittsburgh-based Democratic campaign strategist Mike Mikus. “The question is: how big? Donald Trump is always the wild card in these types of relationships. Donald Trump cares about one person and that’s Donald Trump, and if he doesn’t feel that one day when he’s in Pennsylvania, he can start attacking McCormick.”
McCormick declined an interview request and Trump campaign officials did not respond to messages. But the corpse between them is hard to miss.
The men have not spoken to each other since 2022, according to McCormick’s campaign. They did not meet when Trump was recently in the state to speak to members of the National Rifle Association at the NRA’s Great American Outdoor Show. McCormick was not present and Trump never mentioned McCormick during the 82-minute speech.
In a recent interview with conservative broadcasters, McCormick acknowledged the likelihood that the men will lead the GOP ticket in Pennsylvania and described the relationship in transactional terms.
“My guess is that President Trump, who is at the top of the list, will help me, and I am hopeful that my candidacy and the strength that I would bring will help him,” McCormick said on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.”
McCormick sidestepped Trump’s commitments to moderate voters in a state Trump lost by 1 point in 2020. Instead, McCormick suggested that Trump can help him because he is mobilizing much of the Republican Party to vote — and that McCormick can help Trump with more moderate voters. .
McCormick has said he did not believe he needed Trump’s support to win in 2022 as long as Trump did not attack him, and acknowledged the need to convince moderate voters to support him. On Thursday, he mentioned Trump as he told the crowd at a family farm in northern Pennsylvania that he is rich and can therefore be an independent politician without fear of losing his job.
“After this, I don’t have to make any more money,” McCormick said. “I don’t owe anyone anything. I don’t owe President Trump anything. I don’t owe (Senate GOP leader) Mitch McConnell anything. The only people I should owe anything to are the people of Pennsylvania who put me in this position.”
Still, Borick and other pollsters aren’t sure McCormick can thread another needle, given Trump’s unpopularity with moderates and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending a half-century of federal protection of abortion rights.
McCormick has said he favors a ban on abortion, with an exception to save the life of the mother, a position that could limit his appeal to otherwise persuasive moderates.
Plus, McCormick is virtually unknown compared to Casey, pollsters say.
“Right now, the biggest vulnerability for McCormick is that no one really knows him in this state, and he needs to make sure he defines himself before Casey does,” said Berwood Yost, pollster and director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall. Secondary school.
Yost and other analysts say it will be difficult for McCormick to win without enthusiastic support from Trump’s base. But, Yost said, McCormick may have to figure out how to do that in a challenging political environment if he’s “someone Trump doesn’t favor.”
For his part, McCormick has pledged to support the Republican Party’s presidential candidate – likely Trump. And McCormick has largely remained loyal to Trump’s policies, including siding with Democrats and McConnell in the divisive fight in Congress over bipartisan legislation to tighten border security and send more aid to Ukraine to to help combat the invasion of Russia.
This time, McCormick didn’t need Trump’s help to gain the party’s support or effectively clear the primary field. And McCormick — who has deep pockets and high-level connections in business and politics — has wealthy backers in what is expected to be one of the most expensive Senate races in the country.
A supportive super PAC reported nearly $18 million in contributions, much of it from major Republican donors across the financial and securities trading worlds, and McCormick has promises of support from party brass, including a super PAC linked to McConnell.
Still, there will be a general election cycle when Trump will visit Pennsylvania again. When that happens, both men will have to make a decision about whether to appear together. That could be especially uncomfortable for McCormick, Democrats say.
“McCormick will face a pretty bad choice: skip it and risk becoming a Trump target,” Mikus said, “or pay the political price for his association with Trump.”
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