David McCormick, once the leader of the world’s largest hedge fund, stood in a windswept parking lot in rural Schuylkill County, assailing Sen.
“Pennsylvania families, small business, seniors, farmers are all suffering from this economy and because of this weak leadership in Washington,” McCormick said at the Gilberton Power Co. in late September. Behind him stood workers in jeans and dusty boots, a decked-out campaign bus and a rust-stained cooling tower humming loudly.
Before running for office, the West Point graduate, combat veteran and businessman made a nine-figure fortune as CEO of Connecticut-based Bridgewater Associates.
Now, McCormick, 59, has leveraged his biography, personal wealth, and high finance connections to move within striking distance of a massive upset that could shape the balance of power in the Senate and the next presidency. But his time at Bridgewater may also be the Republican’s biggest obstacle.
Democrats have attacked McCormick’s links to rich investors, and his years living in Connecticut.
“You can elect a hedge fund guy to watch out for the other hedge fund guys,” Sen.
Big Money
Casey, a mild-mannered three-term senator from working-class Scranton, has led in public polling, but some analysts believe his edge has narrowed and this week the non-partisan Cook Political Report labeled the race a “toss-up” after previously favoring the Democrat. Now, against the backdrop of a fierce presidential contest in the country’s most crucial battleground, McCormick and his allies have a projected spending advantage on the air in the campaign’s final weeks, thanks in large part to the Republican’s wealthy allies.
The money behind McCormick includes $15 million that Republican megadonor Kenneth Griffin, founder of the hedge fund Citadel, gave to the McCormick-aligned Keystone Renewal super political action committee, according to federal disclosures.
Other major donors to the group include Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Peterffy ($2.8 million), Elliott Management founder Paul Singer ($2 million), Uline leaders Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein ($2 million combined), and Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Management ($2 million).
McCormick himself has put more than $6 million into his campaign fund. The race is the second most-expensive Senate general election, behind only Ohio’s, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising.
McCormick’s wealth and Casey’s long political career encapsulate the contrasts playing out across many of the country’s most critical Senate contests.
In places such as Montana, Ohio, and Wisconsin Republicans are running rich businessmen who have blamed longtime incumbents for inflation and migration. Democrats, in turn, have picked through the challengers’ business records and sometimes faint ties to the states in which they’re running. And they’ve relied on their incumbents’ well-established personal brands to appeal for cross-over votes.
China, Connecticut
Casey, 64, has accused McCormick of trying to “buy this race.” He’s also hammered investments Bridgewater, under McCormick’s leadership, made in Chinese companies that build bombers, fighter jets and navy vessels for the country’s military.
“It’s the choices that he made,” Casey said during an interview at an electrical workers’ union hall, sitting alongside his wife, Terese. “He chose to invest in an adversary. Not an ally, not just a competitor, an adversary.”
Read More: Bridgewater Grew China Military Investment Under GOP’s McCormick
McCormick has said Bridgewater’s investments in China were a small piece of the firm’s overall portfolio. But Democrats and some Republicans say the links could prove damaging in a state that has suffered economic losses as jobs moved abroad.
Democrats have also emphasized that McCormick lived outside Pennsylvania for more than a decade, first in Washington when he served in the George W. Bush administration and then in Connecticut, with Bridgewater.
Until earlier this year, he still rented a $16 million mansion there. His campaign said he returned to Connecticut to visit his school-age daughter, who lives there with McCormick’s ex-wife.
McCormick, born and raised in Pennsylvania, bought a home in Pittsburgh in 2021, weeks before launching his first run for Senate. His campaign says he no longer rents or owns in Connecticut.
Read More: Rich GOP Senate Contenders Face Attacks Over China and Mansions
Casey, meanwhile, has been in statewide office since 1997 and a senator since 2007. Before that, his father, Bob Casey Sr., was a two-term governor. That’s nearly 40 years of Pennsylvanians electing a “Bob Casey.”
“The Casey name in Pennsylvania is much like the Kennedy name in Massachusetts,” said former Republican Congressman Lou Barletta, who unsuccessfully challenged the senator in 2018.
Shifting Politics
Outside the rural power company, McCormick aimed to turn Casey’s long tenure against him. He branded the senator a “career politician” while decrying the “Biden-Harris-Casey” agenda.
McCormick, during an early October debate, asked voters why a three-term senator who should have a meaningful record is “running his entire campaign with a negative set of attacks on me.”
Pennsylvanians know about the “outsider” argument’s potential. In the 2022 Senate race now-Democratic Sen. John Fetterman eviscerated Republican Mehmet Oz over the celebrity surgeon’s decades living in New Jersey. (Oz had defeated McCormick in that year’s GOP primary).
Despite Pennsylvania’s closely divided politics, no Republican has won a race for Senate or governor since former Sen. Pat Toomey in 2016. After Donald Trump reshaped the party, GOP nominees have struggled to match the former president’s strength in working-class areas, while inheriting his suburban weaknesses.
But Toomey argued that McCormick could defy those trends, and that as the newcomer, he has a better chance to grow support in the campaign’s final weeks.
“Every Pennsylvania voter has heard of Bob Casey,” Toomey said. “If they’re not with him now, chances are they’re not going to be with him.”
Casey has emphasized his recent shift to support abortion rights, and his votes to deliver millions in infrastructure investments and broadband to Pennsylvania, along with a price cap on insulin. He’s also focused on suburban voters.
Warren, President Joe Biden, and Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Josh Shapiro, have all done events with Casey in Montgomery County, the largest of Philadelphia’s collar counties.
“He doesn’t share our values, he doesn’t understand us,” Shapiro said of McCormick, pointing to the Republican’s time in Connecticut, “because he’s not one of us.”
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