Bob Casey to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate | Endorsement

For the second U.S. Senate election in a row, the best candidate the GOP can offer Pennsylvania is someone with tenuous links to the state. Whether it’s pronouncing the Pottsville-produced lager Yuengling as “Yanglang” or rooting for the Steelers at an Eagles tailgate, Dave McCormick can’t stop reminding voters just how shallow his understanding of the commonwealth really is.

Pennsylvanians looking for a candidate with a deep understanding of the state and its role on the national stage have an easy choice to make in supporting Bob Casey, who has earned The Inquirer’s endorsement.

While the Democratic incumbent has long been considered a moderate and is typically even-keeled in conversation, these attributes have not prevented him from supporting substantive change, or from changing with the times himself. Since he ousted Rick Santorum in 2006, Casey has consistently made the right decisions to push America forward.

While some moderate Democratic senators opposed and even occasionally stymied the more ambitious parts of President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda, Casey voted for the Affordable Care Act. As a result, millions of Americans with preexisting conditions that range from a genetic predisposition to cancer to obesity can no longer be denied care.

Under President Donald Trump, Casey voted against the skewed tax cuts for the wealthy, while working with the White House to deliver much-needed financial aid to American families during the pandemic. While some economists believe that generous aid drove inflation, it also helped millions of people keep their homes and feed their families.

Under President Joe Biden, Casey has continued to make the right calls. He provided critical votes in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and in favor of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. No matter who prevails in the presidential race this year, Pennsylvanians can count on Casey to fight the good fight in Washington, D.C.

The same cannot be said of his opponent. McCormick, a hedge fund CEO who declined to meet with the Editorial Board, has a simple pitch: Everything is terrible, and it’s all Casey’s fault.

Yet, some of McCormick’s private-sector decisions suggest he may be unsuited to protect the public interest. His hedge fund bet against many of the state’s most iconic companies, which are also major employers. More than 50 Pennsylvania-based companies, from U.S. Steel to Hershey, were shorted by McCormick’s firm.

His fund also failed to support the interests of the commonwealth’s teachers and taxpayers. Back in 2022, McCormick’s rivals in the Republican primary criticized the performance of state pension funds that had been invested in his firm, which delivered middling profits and were charged high fees — almost $700 million — for roughly a decade. Few, if any, Pennsylvanians realized the firm that was delivering such mediocre results was also betting against some of the state’s economic engines.

McCormick might not have believed in Pennsylvania’s blue-chip companies, but he did believe in Beijing. While candidate McCormick says he wants the U.S. to divest from China, CEO McCormick was enthusiastic about it.

His hedge fund even invested in increasing China’s military capacity, despite the rising jingoism in that country. McCormick’s decision to invest in the production of Chinese weapons — which could one day be pointed at American allies like Taiwan and Japan, or simply sold to terrorist groups — likely made America and the world less safe.

That’s not the only area where McCormick’s record is in deep contradiction with itself.

As he faces Casey, McCormick has sought to cast himself as a moderate on abortion rights. He now calls it a states’ rights issue, with the people of Pennsylvania having spoken on maintaining a woman’s right to choose; however, as a primary candidate, he sang a much more restrictive tune, one that has since been scrubbed from his campaign website.

Abortion isn’t the only area where McCormick has given Pennsylvania’s women reason to doubt him. As CEO, McCormick was accused of threatening women who reported experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace.

Of course, Casey hasn’t always been a strong supporter of abortion access. When he was first elected, he was known as a “pro-life Democrat.” He’s had similar evolutions on guns and gay rights. Still, changing your mind slowly over two decades is not quite the same as McCormick’s abrupt pivot between the primary and general elections.

Pennsylvanians can vote for Casey knowing he will support access to reproductive rights because he’s voted for them already. With McCormick, there’s no such guarantee.

Voters should reelect the thoughtful and deliberate Bob Casey and reject the hedge fund CEO from Connecticut.

» READ MORE: The Inquirer’s 2024 general election endorsement guide