PHILADELPHIA — Halfway through their second debate Tuesday night, the split-screen cameras caught a dramatic stare down that encapsulated the fiery hourlong back-and-forth between U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick.
Mr. McCormick — yet again battered by the three-term incumbent Mr. Casey over his former hedge fund’s investments in a Chinese arms manufacturer linked to Iran — turned toward the senator and cited his military service, saying he was “not going to take any preaching” on morality from a guy who spent 30 years in elected office.
Mr. Casey fired back: “He was just preaching at me.”
As the senator did in the pair’s first debate in Harrisburg earlier this month, Mr. Casey commended Mr. McCormick’s military service but said “this race isn’t about that.” Rather, he argued, it’s about “my work in the U.S. Senate” and Mr. McCormick’s “work as a hedge fund CEO. That’s part of his record. I’m not preaching. I’m stating a fact.”
The actual question asked by ABC6 moderators in an empty Philadelphia studio was on Middle East policy.
The moment marked just one of many opportunities the candidates took to bash each other after being peppered with policy questions ranging from the economy to abortion to immigration. From name-calling (“Punxsutawney Bob” and “lap dog licking the shoes of the Republican nominee”) to accusations that Mr. Casey was “born with a political spoon in his mouth” and that Mr. McCormick’s support for corporate tax cuts could “explode the [national] debt,” the feisty rematch featured plenty of fireworks and the same themes seen in countless campaign ads across the state.
Mr. McCormick pitched himself as a political outsider looking to shake up Washington after years of economic decline that he pinned on the Biden-Harris administration (and Mr. Casey).
“He is a status quo candidate,” Mr. McCormick said. “He is a weak, 30-year incumbent. Bob Casey didn’t change Washington. Washington changed Bob Casey.”
The senator, meanwhile, roasted Mr. McCormick as a wealthy Connecticut-tied former executive with an investment track record that includes personal investments in Rumble, a website he said platforms antisemitism, and managing money “for the Saudis.”
He also painted Mr. McCormick as eager to “double down” on the Trump administration’s 2017 corporate tax cuts that he said would benefit “the most powerful companies in the world,” add trillions to the national debt, and undermine American workers. Mr. Casey pressed instead for a middle class tax cut, increasing the child tax credit, and punishing big companies that engage in price gouging.
Mr. McCormick, who has also supported a middle class tax cut and increasing the child tax credit, said $5 trillion in spending by the Biden administration has been the major driver of inflation — not price gouging.
“The problem is, this is caused by bad policy,” he said, adding that Mr. Casey has voted “99% with Biden-Harris. One thing we learned in the Army on day one, you’ve got to take responsibility for your actions — he’s not.”
The debate came three weeks before Election Day and as the campaigns and allies flood Pennsylvania with record spending as the winner could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
It also comes as Mr. McCormick continues to cut into what was previously a steady lead for Mr. Casey. The latest poll of registered voters from the New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer showed Mr. Casey leading 48% to 43%, within the poll’s margin of error, which means Mr. McCormick could actually be in the lead. In any event, that marks a four-point bump for Mr. McCormick since a poll in mid-September.
Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, served multiple roles focused on the treasury and national security in the George W. Bush administration. He narrowly lost a 2022 GOP Senate primary to celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
Mr. Casey, who has won each of his Senate bids since 2006 by at least 9 percentage points, is a former state treasurer and auditor general, as well as the son of a former Pennsylvania governor.
Mr. McCormick on Tuesday derided the senator as “not an independent voice,” saying he’s voted “in lock step” with the Democratic Party as it’s moved leftward, and refused to pull his endorsement of U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, who Mr. McCormick characterized as an antisemite.
“This is a guy who’s gone off track with the values of Pennsylvania,” he said. “I think he needs to be replaced.”
The senator sought to remind voters that his legislation helped keep women safer from sexual assault on college campuses across the country; helped families save for children with disabilities; and helped bring bipartisan infrastructure spending to all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
Mr. Casey noted that Mr. McCormick wants to repeal the infrastructure bill, which included funding for schools, bridges and high speed internet. He also said he supported the bipartisan border bill backed by U.S. Border Patrol’s union, saying it would have added officers to the border and technology to help curb the influx of fentanyl, saying Mr. McCormick wouldn’t support it only because of former President Donald Trump’s political demands to Republicans.
Mr. Casey added that he helped pass caps on the price of insulin and out-of-pocket costs — a bill that benefited more than 829,000 Pennsylvanians, he said, yet Mr. McCormick “wants to repeal it” as well.
“So who’s more bipartisan?” Mr. Casey said. “While I was doing bipartisan work, he was investing in China and Russia.”
Mr. McCormick noted that some of Bridgewater Associates’ investments were in China, but that all of its investments were approved by the U.S. government. He also argued that Mr. Casey, when he was state treasurer, approved investments in Bridgewater Associates.
“He’s got one move,” Mr. McCormick said of his opponent. “He’s anti-business and anti-success.”
The Harrisburg debate on Oct. 3 was similarly a heated back-and-forth touching on a range of policy disputes, including abortion, immigration, the economy and energy. But the candidates spent just as much time bashing each other’s character, with Mr. McCormick depicting the incumbent as a “weak, liberal, career politician” and Mr. Casey painting the Republican as a wealthy executive beholden to billionaires and corporations.
First Published: October 16, 2024, 12:58 a.m.
Updated: October 16, 2024, 3:47 p.m.
