Can Bob Casey’s ‘oatmeal’ style of legislating survive Dave McCormick’s ‘do-nothing’ attacks?

As steady rain fell on the windows outside the large meeting room, Sen. Bob Casey talked about corporate greed, his soft, flat voice just audible over the downpour.

“They’re ripping families off,” said Casey (D., Pa.). “They’re still doing it. And I have to continue to prosecute this case until they get the message.”

The roundtable discussion was stiff and a bit sleepy but researched and on message — much like Casey.

The mild-mannered three-term senator, who has joked about once being compared to oatmeal, is facing the toughest reelection fight of his career. He’s running alongside an unpopular president, with whom he is closely linked. And he’s trying to sell his low-key legislator persona to voters and defend his record as his Republican opponent, Dave McCormick, calls him a rubber stamp for President Joe Biden with little to show for his nearly 18 years in the Senate.

His allies say he’s a workhorse in a Senate full of show horses, with his recent focus on consumers the latest example of his methodical approach.

“Bob Casey is not standing up in caucus to give a loud speech or on Twitter all the time,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.). “Bob Casey’s trying to solve problems, to get things done to help people and sometimes that means he’s not recognized as the genuine leader he is.”

Republicans see an opening to define Casey, given that about a quarter of Pennsylvania’s likely voters said in a recent survey that they don’t know enough to have an opinion of Casey, the state’s longest-serving Democratic senator in history and the son of a former Pennsylvania governor.

“He’s very passive,” McCormick said during a recent campaign swing through Northeastern Pennsylvania. “He doesn’t lead the charge. He’s not a voice of vision and strength of the direction of America.”

In 2007, the year Casey started in the Senate, then-Sen. Barack Obama announced his run for president, the Sopranos ended with a fade to black, and the iPhone first came on the market.

Over 18 years, only eight bills he sponsored have become law on their own out of more than 1,000 introduced — the most recent to rename a courthouse. That’s on par with some senators who started the same year he did, including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.).

But when you include laws passed as larger legislation — the method by which most bills advance — 96 of Casey’s bills introduced have been passed into law since 2012, ranking him sixth among all U.S. senators in the most recent session, according to GovTrack, which tracks legislation.

“I find it crazy that anyone would say that about Bob Casey,” Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) said of the attack on Casey’s legislative substance. Murray, who serves with Casey on the Senate Health Committee, said the Pennsylvanian is “constantly asking, ‘What’s the issue? How do we get involved? How do we make this work? How do we talk to Republicans and to Democrats?’”

Even former Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican backing McCormick, declined to comment when asked whether describing Casey as a do-nothing senator accurately portrayed his resume.

“I got along great with Bob Casey. He’s a good man. We worked especially closely on judges,” Toomey said. “But I think Dave McCormick’s just a terrific candidate.”

Casey’s bills are emblematic of his career: bipartisan, largely uncontroversial, and often focused on vulnerable residents, such as older Americans, veterans, and people with disabilities.

He was the author of the ABLE Act, passed in 2014 to allow families who have a child with a disability to save for their future without risking their federal disability benefits.

The PACT (Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics) Act, which expanded access to health care to veterans injured from exposure to burn pits and other toxic substances, is the subject of one of his early TV ads.

Other legislation has focused on protecting kids from falling dressers, improving reporting standards for sexual assault on campuses, increasing protections for pregnant people in the workplace, and recognizing “Rosie the Riveters,” whose work helped the war effort, with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Casey’s critics argue that those bills weren’t exactly controversial.

“A lot of his deliverables have been fighting for this project or program that no one was against,” GOP political consultant Chris Nicholas said. “He picks easy fights.”

As Casey touts his votes for Biden-backed legislation that ushered in massive funding for infrastructure, manufacturing, and family support programs, McCormick slams the same laws for causing rising inflation.

“The Biden-Casey agenda is completely failing our commonwealth,” McCormick said. “We see it in fentanyl pouring over our southern border, violent crime ripping through our cities, the sky-high cost of groceries, gas, and rent, and burdensome regulations crushing our energy sector.”

Casey is also something of an outlier style-wise. He’s not known to go on cable news shows or to weigh in on a controversial topic ahead of colleagues, a contrast with Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s freshman Democrat who is quick to enter a public conversation. In most polls of Pennsylvania voters, Fetterman is better known than Casey, despite having spent far less time in the Senate.

What Casey’s record will mean to voters is unclear. Most voters don’t tend to associate senators with specific legislation, Democratic political consultant Mike Mikus said. “But they just absorb, ‘Yeah, he’s doing good stuff and he fights for Pennsylvania.’ If I’m the Casey campaign, this is nothing to worry about because it’s very easy to shoot down.”

For Casey, the far more damaging attack will likely be connecting him to Biden, strategists on both sides of the aisle say.

“Casey’s biggest vulnerability is the Biden administration,” GOP consultant Vince Galko said. “Casey wins or loses based on what Biden does in the next couple of months.”

And while both presidential candidates are wildly unpopular, McCormick can distance himself from former President Donald Trump more easily than Casey can Biden. Both are sons of Scranton from Irish Catholic families, friends, and longtime political allies.

At the State of the Union address, Biden called out one senator by name and it was “Bobby Casey,” as he urged Congress to pass his “greedflation” bill.

The phrase places the blame for rising costs on corporations rather than the president, and is a way for Casey to run alongside Biden while still acknowledging the economic pain that Americans feel after years of inflation.

“It’s what people are seeing and experiencing in their own lives,” Casey said.

The bill would empower the Federal Trade Commission to investigate price gouging and implement penalties. Seven months out from an election, it has little chance of gaining Republican support.

But as a campaign message, it’s a populist appeal to working people and a way for Casey to show whom he’s fighting for.

At the roundtable session, Taylor Austin, a 31-year-old mom from Eastwick, talked about the rising price of berries, a favorite snack of her 3-year-old, and the stress of hoping she could potty train her daughter quickly because the family was struggling to afford diapers.

“I appreciate the work he’s doing,” Austin said afterward. “And I think it’s going to reach the people that it’s intended to reach, which is everyday Pennsylvanians who are just working trying to make ends meet.”

The election will be a test of how Casey’s hometown appeal holds up in a nationalized race as the state becomes the key battleground in the presidential contest.

Casey’s late father, a widely beloved governor, is still known by a large swath of the state’s older population. But Casey’s own moderate political ideology has shifted leftward along with the party, and the constituency he needs to win has likely changed, too.

“Like his dad, he tapped into blue-collar, center-right, voters in this state who might be a union member registered Democrat, but still went to church every Sunday and hunting every year,” Galko said. “Now, he has to appeal more to the traditional suburban, or inner-city, voter.”

With two Democrats representing the state in the chamber for the first time in its history, Casey could face more scrutiny from voters looking to restore political balance to the delegation.

“He’s tagging along on the coattails of his father,” said Donna Depue, 71, a retiree who attended a recent McCormick event in Tunkhannock. “That’s how I feel about Casey. Yes, he has the name but what has he done? Show me.”

But Casey has the benefit of 30 years representing Pennsylvania (first as an auditor general and a treasurer). He knows the places he visits, often rattling off stats about the county. And his staff has leaned in to promoting his personality online with dad jokes and homemade maps.

One of his final stops in Southeastern Pennsylvania in early April was at the port of Chester, where he met members of the Boilermakers union and port officials for a tour.

Casey stuck out as he walked through the refrigerated warehouse, tall and wearing a sports jacket with a bright-blue hard hat. At one point, a few workers in neon vests paused to ask for a photo.

“You know who that was?” one said to another afterward. “That’s Bob Casey.”