Pete Hegseth is on the brink of confirmation and Dave McCormick’s Pa. victory is a big reason why

The impact of Sen. Dave McCormick’s victory in last year’s Senate race was on display Thursday as the freshman Republican cast a key vote to advance one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks.

The Senate voted 51 to 49 to break the filibuster and advance the nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense. McCormick’s vote helped his party overcome defections from moderate GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

It’s a vote Republicans would not have had if McCormick had not defeated longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in the race for Pennsylvania’s crucial Senate seat.

“President Trump needs his team of disrupters on day one to deliver on the promise of change to the people of Pennsylvania and America,” McCormick said in a statement Thursday evening, noting he had met with Hegseth and reviewed his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“A fellow combat veteran, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pete has put his life on the line to defend America,” said McCormick, an Army veteran. “I trust he will put the men and women who are the warfighters first.­­­­­ H­e and President Trump can build a team to­ transform one of the most complex and critical organizations in the world and restore peace through strength.”

The final vote will likely take place on Friday when Hegseth is expected to maintain the support he received on Thursday and secure confirmation. In the event of a tie, Vice President JD Vance will cast the tie-breaking vote.

In a pool of unconventional cabinet nominees, Hegseth has been the most contentious. In a hearing last week, he was grilled by senators about excessive drinking, extramarital affairs, and allegations of a 2017 sexual assault, which he has denied.

Every Democrat voted against advancing Hegseth’s nomination— including Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), who had met with the former Fox News host and signaled an openness to backing him.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said on Thursday as the vote was nearing that Hegseth was an “erratic” person unsuited to lead the “world’s greatest military.”

“Advancing a secretary of defense is one of the most important votes senators are going to take all year,” Schumer said. “ … Is this man, with a known history of excessive drinking, the guy you want at the other end of the phone at 2 a.m. in a crisis in control of the nuclear codes?”

It was the first confirmation vote of Trump’s second administration with such a stark partisan divide.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), the party’s former leader in the Senate, was believed to be on the fence but ultimately voted with his party to suspend debate and advance Hegseth. Collins and Murkowski, the two moderate Republicans who voted no, issued lengthy statements outlining their concerns.

McCormick, an Army veteran, had not publicly said how he would vote but told a Harrisburg TV station that he admired his service in the National Guard and agreed with the idea that the military is “too woke.”

McCormick told abc27 he thought women should be serve on the front lines of war “as long as they meet the standard that’s necessary for combat roles, like a man.”

Hegseth had repeatedly said he thought the military had lowered its standards when it started opening all combat positions to women in 2015, a claim that he has failed to back up with evidence and one that advocates for women in the armed forces have rejected.

Politically, it was likely the first of many narrow votes for the GOP in the Senate, where the party has a six-vote majority.

McCormick beat Casey in battleground Pennsylvania by less than 1%, while Democratic incumbents in battleground Michigan and Arizona held on. Wisconsin incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson won reelection by a similarly slim margin.

Those narrow victories could likely mean narrow legislative advancements for Republicans. McCormick ran a more moderate campaign than he did in his 2022 Senate primary but he also campaigned closely with Trump and visited with him at Mar-a-Lago and at the Army-Navy game.

While Hegseth denied a 2017 assault allegation, he did acknowledge paying the woman a $50,000 settlement, a figure that came out on Thursday. He was in the process of a divorce at the time after having a child with a Fox News producer who became his current wife, according to court records.

This week more allegations surfaced as senators vetting Hegseth received an affidavit from a former sister-in-law alleging that the onetime Fox News host was abusive to his second wife, to the point where she feared for her safety.

The affidavit describes Hegseth’s treatment of his second wife, Samantha, and alleges repeated drunkenness and a domestic situation where Samantha Hegseth had a safe word to indicate if she was in danger at home.

Hegseth has denied the allegations. Samantha Hegseth and Pete Hegseth both signed a Minnesota court document in 2021 during their divorce saying neither claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse.

Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote for advancing Hegseth in an earlier procedural vote, but he voted with the rest of his party on Thursday.

The Pennsylvania Democrat has been his party’s most vocal supporter of some of Trump’s nominees. Fetterman, who visited Trump in Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, has been unapologetic about meeting with the Republican president’s nominees.

“I’m not sure why it would be controversial to anybody if he’s the individual who could potentially be the next secretary of defense,” Fetterman said of his decision to meet with Hegseth in December.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.