TOSSUP ELECTION?: The 2024 Pennsylvania Senate Race (9/12/24)

the senate race in Pennsylvania has become surprisingly close over the past couple of weeks with Bob Casey's lead in the polls dropping from around seven just a few weeks ago down to about 3.4 in the RCP average so in today's video we're going to talk about why the Pennsylvania Senate race has tightened over in the last couple of weeks why Bob Casey is still the favorite here in Pennsylvania so we're going to get to all of that in just a second but first if you're new to the Channel please consider subscribing down below and liking this video if you enjoy so it's no secret that Bob Casey is the favorite in Pennsylvania he's been the senator here since 2007 with his smallest margin of Victory being about 9 percentage points back in 2012 now this is only the second time in Bob Casey's career that he's going to have to run on the same ticket as a Presidential nominee while running for Senate so back in 2012 Barack Obama won Pennsylvania by around five points Bob Casey won by around nine so he overperformed the top of the ticket by about four points this time around he's overperforming com Harris in the polls by three points the top of the ticket contest between KLA Harris and Donald Trump a dead tie so this race is tightened up over the past few weeks mainly because McCormick has been really killing it in terms of the TV ad game and in terms of diverting money into his election because Pennsylvania is now rapidly becoming the most expensive Senate race in the entire country because both parties understand that this state is very critical to holding on or even expanding the majority because if we take a look at the the state of the Senate right now Republicans are on track to gain 52 seats Democrats are on track to get 47 now with the races shaping up as they are right now Democrats probably win Pennsylvania by a lean margin that puts the Senate at 5248 so Democrats desperately need Pennsylvania if they want to limit the power of a republican majority now what's fascinating about this is that we're talking about Pennsylvania and we're not so much talking about Michigan or Wisconsin and that's mainly because the polling shows that Pennsylvania is actually much more competitive than both of these states put together now I think one of the reasons for that is that Dave McCormack has done a very good job in tying Bob Casey to National Democrats and to kamla Harris in particular when Joe Biden was the nominee he was heavily hammering on Bob Casey's connections to Joe Biden but I think now that you have KLA Harris as the nominee it obviously changes the dynamic of the race even though Donald Trump was leading Joe Biden by around four points on the day he dropped out of the presidential contest Bob Case was beating Dave McCormack by around seven so the race has rapidly taken a much more competitive turn now I think this was inevitable mainly because of the fact that Pennsylvania is probably likely going to be the deciding state of the 2024 election so a lot of resources are being put here and because Republicans are putting more resources into McCormack's campaign it's making the race that much more competitive Dave McCormick's team I think is one of the most competent Republican teams across the entire country when we're talking about Battleground Senate races because we just take a brief overview with the other republican nominees characters like Carrie Lake for example in Arizona Bernie Marino in Ohio they're massively underperforming where they should be Dave McCormick is overperforming expectations because earlier on in the election season many forecasters had Pennsylvania going to Bob Casey by 78 some cases even 10 points now we're looking at a low single digits margin of Victory which is I think a moral victory for Republicans but obviously there's no substitute for ual Victory the mccormic campaign is going to try to drive their message home and now that we're post Labor Day a lot more attention has been focused on the election itself we had the debate the other night so a lot more people are now paying attention to the election and that's why you're seeing this shift in the polls now I think the real question in 2024 is whether or not we still have this shy Trump voter Factor when it comes to the polls and Donald Trump and Republican support is going to be underestimated or like we had in the midterms Democratic support is going to be underestimated now there is a third option and that is the polls are fairly accurate in some states like Georgia for example that's usually the case I think Donald Trump is up by. three in Georgia right now over kamla Harris which you know if the polls were to be accurate that would give Donald Trump an incredibly narrow margin of Victory but Pennsylvania is critical in regards to not just the presidential contest but the Senate and I think that's why you're seeing this race come so close now back in 2022 we almost had Dave McCormack be the Republican nominee he lost to Dr Oz in the primary by less than a thousand votes and his biggest areas of strength are where he was from Western Pennsylvania and this is actually an area where Dr Oz really struggled to gain Traction in 2022 and it's one of the reasons why he lost by a whopping Five Points in a race that the polling had him favored to win now if we take a look at the counties around uh alagan and we could take a look at alagan County itself fedman won here 6335 Joe Biden only won alany County by 603 so it was really just a 21o margin uh for Joe Biden as opposed to a 28o margin for John fedman so that's also where Federman is from he's from Western PA but if we take a look at the outer counties around alagan and this is an area that Nets Republicans around 100,000 votes West Morland County fet County Washington uh All Counties were Dr O's underperformed West Morland County he was only able to get 58% faget County 60% Washington 56 if we take a look at 2020 Donald Trump got 63% of the vote in West Morland 66 in fet and 61% in Washington so Dr o not only underperformed Donald Trump in Western PA but he also underperformed in the critical Philadelphia suburbs and this is the region of the state that's really going to decide not just how Pennsylvania votes but obviously also how the election could end up unfolding and I think this is an area of weakness for republicans in general because the Philadelphia CER counties had always been more socially liberal fiscally conservative and it's one of the reasons why they haven't voted for a republican nominee for president since 1988 and even in 2016 When Donald Trump won the state of Pennsylvania as a whole Hillary Clinton still carried every one of the Philadelphia Coller counties Bucks County was the closest she still was able to win that by less than a point so ultimately this is going to be a tough part of the state now as 2016 showed you don't need to win the Philadelphia collar counties to win the state but you do need to narrow up the margins and the mar that Donald Trump got back in 2020 uh were the reason why he lost you know losing places like Chester County by 17 points Bucks County by four Montgomery County 6236 Delaware County 6236 uh these are not numbers that a republican can get and still end up winning the state as a whole I mean you would need an incredible shift to the right in places like Lazer laana Monroe County Lancaster so on and so forth it's just not going to happen so Dave McCormack I think an area he could potenti do better in than Donald Trump is the suburb potentially see Dave McCormack do a few points better in Chester County a few points better in Bucks County a little bit better in Montgomery County but the rural parts of the state might be stagnant for him or he might actually do worse because that has been a strong suit of Bob Casey's going back to his first election Victory winning a number of Rural Pennsylvania counties now what's different about this race obviously is that this is the first time that Bob Casey has been pulling uh really Within in single digits I mean he's only up 3.4 as we pointed out earlier the latest poll has Bob Casey up by eight points never really heard of this poll morning console is much more wellknown this is a ninepoint margin CNN poll has the race at a dead heat so when you average these polls together you get Bob Casey up by around 3.4 now again this is mainly because Republicans have put tens of millions of dollars into the state now conventional wisdom would have told you not to do that because this was going to be a very tough state to flip and I still think Bob Casey is the clear favorite but it seems like if the polls continue to Trend in this direction this big investment in Pennsylvania is paying off for the goop and with somebody like Donald Trump tied with kamla Harris at the top of the ticket I think you could see this race become a three to fourpoint race as opposed to what it was earlier which was a seven to eight point race so I'm not saying by any means that Dave McCormack is going to win this race I think Bob Casey is the clear favorite but it does show you that running a strong candidate like Dave McCormick and you know I do think he has some of his problems you know obviously he's got ties to Connecticut and things like that that's something that hurt Dr RZ when it came to New Jersey I'm sure Bob Casey is running on that Bob Casey's also running a lot on abortion so you know there are some weaknesses that this candidate has but you know by and large Dave McCormack is sort of this Republican unifier he has Donald Trump's endorsement he has George W Bush's endorsement he has the endorsement of a lot of establishment Republicans and he has the endorsement of a lot of Maga Republicans so in a lot of ways Dave McCormack is sort of like a Glenn yunan figure in in the sense that he's able to basically make both wings of the party happy now at the end of the day in a state like Pennsylvania a state that typically leans blue that might not be enough but if Dave McCormack only loses by a couple of points it's because he ran an exceptional campaign and really UniFi the entire Republican base behind him now looking at the Senate map as a whole again I think Pennsylvania is going to be a tough flip for Republicans but it's very interesting that Pennsylvania is the state that we're focusing on where Bob Casey is very strong incumbent and we're not really focusing on Wisconsin in Michigan I think the main reason for that is that you have a candidate quality difference here Dave McCormick is a very exceptional candidate from what I've seen so far and that's why he's been able to drag Bob Casey who out of all of these candidates out of Wisconsin Nevada he was the candidate that should have performed the best and has historically performed the best in his election performances that's why this race has been brought down to low single digits while places like Wisconsin you have Tammy Baldwin up by like seven points over Eric Hy and in Nevada you have Jackie Rosen uh beating her Republican opponent by like Five Points so it's really fascinating that Pennsylvania has become the closest of these races I think it's just because of the major investment you're getting from National groups on both sides I think Bob Casey is now having to play defense whereas before he was able to play offense because he was massively ahead in the polls he really didn't need to focus too much on the election but to his credit he has been doing a lot of camp campaigning and you know he's very unabashed about his support for kamla Harris and before that Joe Biden so he's very much tied to the National Democratic party in a way that I think he hasn't been in years past so that could be another reason why this race is becoming so close now at the end of the day I think at this point Bob Casey wins by four to five so I would now move this race down to the lean Democratic column but I think this was always sort of an inevitable change because the top of the ticket race was always going to be close and I expect Bob k to outrun KLA Harris by several points so if KLA Harris wins Pennsylvania by let's say 2 to3 I would expect Bob Casey to win by 4 to5 we still have 50 plus days until the election but you know this is the way the Pennsylvania Senate race is shaping up we're going to talk about places like Ohio Michigan Wisconsin Nevada and Arizona as we get closer to the election we might also talk about Texas even if kamla Harris becomes president and let's say even if Democrats win the state of Ohio very narrowly the Republicans still take the Senate even if KLA Harris is president with a 5149 majority so anyway that's it for today's video please leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed subscribe to the channel hit the Bell notification so you don't miss any more videos I put out as always again thank you all for watching and I hope to see you in the next one