Republican David McCormick, who the Associated Press called as the winner of the election for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, outlined his agenda and addressed his newly filed election lawsuits during a press conference Friday morning in Pittsburgh.
Although the Associated Press called the race for Mr. McCormick, Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey has not conceded, with his campaign saying an estimated 100,000 ballots still need to be counted in a race where the margin hovers around 35,000 votes.
Mr. McCormick’s margin of victory is currently less than 0.5% — close enough to trigger an automatic recount under Pennsylvania law.
Standing at a podium in the Heinz Hall garden in Downtown, Mr. McCormick told supporters he was focused on representing the whole state, not just those who voted for him.
“Today, I turn the page,” Mr. McCormick said. “I am focused on serving every single Pennsylvanian with all my energy, everything I’ve got.”
Mr. McCormick expressed his gratitude to Mr. Casey and his family’s long political history in Pennsylvania. He mentioned that his father once worked for Mr. Casey’s father, former Gov. Bob Casey Sr.
“We obviously had an incredibly hard-fought race, but there’s no doubt that this is a family, and Senator Casey is a man who has served this great commonwealth with honor,” he said.
In multiple court filings late Thursday night, Mr. McCormick preemptively sought to challenge wide swathes of provisional ballots that remain uncounted in Philadelphia rather than one by one, saying individual ballot challenges “would be a waste of judicial and economic resources.”
Mr. McCormick pointed to the 15,000 to 20,000 provisional ballots expected to be counted in the coming days, calling it unwieldy to individually challenge ballots without proper signatures or secrecy envelopes or that could otherwise be challenged.
The complaint named the Philadelphia County Board of Elections and Commissioners Omar Sabir, Lisa M. Deeley and Seth Bluestein.
The filing asked the judge for an injunction that would allow the McCormick camp to make “global challenges to large groups of provisional ballots that share the same deficiencies.” The injunction, they argued, was “for the sake of judicial and economic efficiency.”
State law allows each candidate to have one representative present for ballot inspection and counting as well as one representative from each political party. Because of the number of Democrats that ran unopposed in the region, Democrats, attorneys wrote, are entitled to 38 representatives while Republicans are entitled to 11.
“[Mr. McCormick] is concerned that the sheer number of provisional ballots will overwhelm the capacity for individual challenges,” attorneys wrote, “creating an impractical burden that risks errors or inconsistencies in the adjudication process.”
Without being able to make sweeping challenges to groups of ballots, the filing argued, ballots that should not be counted could be improperly counted.
“Thus,” the filing continued, “a global objection to invalid provisional ballots would be proper as to not deprive [Mr. McCormick] of his statutorily guaranteed rights.”
A separate filing alleged that officials in Philadelphia “intend to examine and adjudicate the provisional ballots at such a pace that it effectively prevents [Mr. McCormick] from fully exercising his rights” to challenge ballots. That is, multiple Board of Election officials will be examining and counting ballots whereas Mr. McCormick is permitted to have only one representative monitor the process.
That filing asks a judge to order that all provisional ballots be processed strictly “within the presence of at least one authorized representative of each candidate … and that such representative be able to observe each ballot.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said Thursday afternoon, "We estimate there are at least 100,000 ballots remaining to be adjudicated, including provisional, military, overseas, and Election Day votes. We urge patience as election workers continue to do this important work, especially in contests where the margins are very close."
Mr. Casey’s U.S. Senate colleague, John Fetterman, supported his refusal to concede and criticized the AP for calling the race.
"We still have tens of thousands of votes to be counted across the commonwealth," Mr. Fetterman, D-Pa., said on X, adding that the Associated Press "shouldn’t make a call in this race until every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted."
The AP issued an explanation of its decision, saying that “McCormick was leading by more than 30,000 votes when AP called the race at 4:09 p.m. [on Thursday], and though there were an estimated 91,000 votes still outstanding, there were not enough in areas supporting Casey for him to make up the difference.”
Friday morning, Mr. McCormick said, “If you look at the math and the reason the AP called the race, there’s no path to Senator Casey overcoming my lead, which is more than 32,000 votes, but there are ballots that will continue to be counted,” he said. “That [filing] is just to make sure that there is an adequate number of observers that are overseeing that counting process.”
Follow-up questions from reporters were drowned out by several people wearing campaign gear, one of whom said that they were “not taking any more questions about that nonsense.”
Although the AP called the race, numerous other news organizations still had not projected a winner, and the results are not official until certified by the state. The Post-Gazette follows the AP's race-calling in its reporting until races are officially certified.
Mr. McCormick said he spoke to President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday and vowed to help pass his incoming administration’s agenda. At the same time, he is “looking forward” to reaching across the aisle and working with Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman, he said.
Three issues will define Mr. McCormick’s term in the Senate, he said: Inflation, job growth and stopping shipments of fentanyl coming into the United States across the southern border.
“They’re not Republican problems. They’re not Democrats’. These are problems for everybody,” he said.
First Published: November 8, 2024, 4:45 p.m.
Updated: November 9, 2024, 2:01 p.m.
