Republican David McCormick and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey are vying for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat (Capital-Star composite from official/campaign photos)
With control of the U.S. Senate hanging in the balance, three-term Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and GOP challenger Dave McCormick met Tuesday night in Philadelphia for their final debate before the November election.
The two continued the themes of their first meeting on Oct. 3, with McCormick seeking to portray Casey as weak and ineffective as the reasons for why he should be replaced, and Casey hammering at McCormick’s past as a hedge fund manager and residency status — whether he lives in Pennsylvania or Connecticut — as evidence he can’t be trusted.
“If he’s going to talk about his record versus my record, his record is as a hedge fund CEO investing in China and our adversaries,” Casey said. “That’s his record. Mine is bipartisan work in the Senate.”
McCormick repeatedly referred to what he called the failed policies of “Biden-Harris-Casey.” Casey often referred to McCormick’s investments in China while he was CEO of Bridgewater Associates.
Abortion
On the issue of abortion, McCormick reiterated former President Donald Trump’s position that it was a matter best left to states. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, 13 states have implemented near-total abortion bans.
“It’s so polarizing that courts shouldn’t decide, judges shouldn’t decide, people should decide. And there’s very different views across states. So I believe it’s a state’s rights issue,” he said, adding he supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, and said he would not support any national legislation or any national ban on abortion.
McCormick also said he wanted to talk about “other aspects of reproductive rights,” adding he thinks the government should get involved with helping families have children with fertility treatments. “I, as a CEO, I gave every employee IVF treatment. The company reimbursed them 100% I think the government should give a $15,000 tax credit for IVF. So we need to talk more expansively about reproductive rights. And I think the people respectfully need to, need to decide,” he said.
Casey, who described himself as “pro-life” when he was first elected to the Senate, defended his record on the issue when McCormick accused him of flip-flopping during Tuesday’s debate. He pointed out that the voted in favor of the 2022 Women’s Health Protection Act, which would protect abortion at the federal level if enacted.
“We had a very clear choice at that moment, whether you’re a citizen or a member of the United States Senate or a legislator of any kind, you had to make a decision,” Casey said of his pivot. “It’s ban abortion or or not ban abortion. That was the choice before the country and I voted at that moment to restore those rights.”
He added that McCormick did not support an IVF bill before the Senate. “We’re at a point now where the country is going to make a choice in terms of this Senate race, in terms of control the Senate, and that will largely determine whether or not [women’s] rights are restored or not. I’ve already voted twice to restore those rights, but my opponent won’t support that.”
Immigration
Moderator Ilia Calderon noted “an alarming rise anti immigrant rhetoric with President Trump demonizing migrants while immigration policy proposals stall in Congress,” and asked McCormick what he would do specifically to protect immgrant families.
“Well I’m married to an immigrant so I’m definitely pro-legal immigration,” McCormick said. His wife Dena was born in Egypt. “We need to secure the border. We need to go after the cartels with military. We need to disrupt — we need to treat them as the terrorist threat they are. And of course, we need to embrace the fact that we’re a country of immigrants. We can’t tolerate hate, but we also can’t tolerate a wide open border that’s that’s damaging the security of Americans.”
Calderon asked Casey what action steps or legislative measures he would you take to ensure Congress gets closer to passing an immigration reform bill.
“The first thing we should do is pass the bipartisan border security bill that’s before the Senate right now,” Casey said, noting that Trump had urged House Republicans not to pass it despite bipartisan support. “Number one, we have to secure our border. That means hiring more Border Patrol [agents], that means investing a lot more in the technology that will stop fentanyl at the border, and that means giving the President new authority to shut down the border and reduce the number of people coming across our border, fixing our asylum system. I think if we do that, it not only will help us secure the border, but it will also give credibility back to get to other reforms.”
Environment
Casey said he supports an energy strategy that includes natural gas extraction, or fracking, which has been linked to health concerns. “But here’s what I think the difference is between my position on allowing gas extraction: making sure we have other options, like nuclear, renewable sources of energy, clean energy. We still use coal in some parts of our state for our energy base.”
In response to a question noting recent hurricanes have wreaked serious damage, McCormick said the “Biden Harris Casey” energy policy was one of the administration’s worst “because we’ve we’ve restricted our natural gas ability to export, drill and have pipelines for natural gas with EPA mandates, with all these huge subsidies to China for lithium batteries to solar panels. So we’ve depressed our natural gas here in Pennsylvania.”
He said natural gas was the key to economic growth, national security and climate change. “That natural gas exported around the world is how we’re going to reduce global climate change, not by the Paris Accords, which basically puts constraints on us.”
Gun control
Casey said the gun lobby “has a stranglehold on a lot of members of Congress” and on McCormick. He said that’s meant “common sense gun measures that will have no impact on the Second Amendment rights” like an assault weapons ban can’t get passed. “He doesn’t have the political courage to stand up to the gun lobby to support those common sense measures.”
McCormick said he was “in favor of the policy that President Trump put in place of eliminating bump stocks. But the problem you’re trying to solve is not going to be solved by restricting legal gun ownership.” Asked if AK-47 and AR-15 rifles should remain legal, McCormick said both were “semi-automatic rifles.”
“I’m in favor of those not being restricted, the same rules we have now. They’re used for sporting, they’re used for protection.”
The latest New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer poll showed Casey with a 48% to 43%, lead over McCormick.