By David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive who lost a Republican primary for Senate last year in Pennsylvania, on Thursday will announce another run at representing the state in the chamber, according to a Republican strategist close to his nascent campaign and another person familiar with the announcement.
McCormick intends to announce his bid to topple Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who has served in the Senate since 2007, during a speech in Pittsburgh, the people said. McCormick’s candidacy will serve as a test of whether Republicans can flip a seat in what has historically been a battleground state.
Pennsylvania had a Republican senator and a Democratic senator for more than a decade until Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R) retired in January. Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat, picked up the seat last year after a bruising Republican primary battle elevated television celebrity physician Mehmet Oz as the party’s nominee.
Republican Party officials have told McCormick, who finished second to Oz last year, that they will coalesce around him this time.
Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for governor last year who previously said he was “praying” on whether to make a bid for U.S. Senate, announced in May that he would not run.
In an interview Monday on Real America’s Voice, Mastriano voiced support for McCormick.
“It’s time to unify,” he said.
A 58-year-old veteran and former U.S. Treasury Department official, McCormick has been working for months to prepare for another Senate run. In March, he spoke at a meeting of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and published a book detailing his vision for the country.
McCormick is already facing barbs from Democrats about whether he truly lives in Pennsylvania. He changed his residency from Connecticut last year to run for office. The Associated Press reported last month that in addition to his home in Pittsburgh, McCormick rents a $16 million mansion in Westport, Conn.
Fetterman shared a meme in August to mock McCormick as not a true Pennsylvania resident and urged his followers to support Casey. Last week, the state’s Democratic Party published a video called “Where’s Dave,” interviewing residents of McCormick’s purported neighborhood who said they had never seen him there.
As a first-time political candidate last year, McCormick cast himself as an ally of former president Donald Trump — identifying as an “America First” candidate and leaning on high-profile Trump allies as campaign advisers. Ultimately, the former president endorsed Oz, who went on to beat McCormick by a slim margin.
In addition to Pennsylvania, Republican operatives hope to pick up Senate seats in Montana, West Virginia and Ohio — states with incumbent Democratic senators that Trump won in 2020. Republicans would need two seats, or one plus the vice president, who breaks ties in the chamber, to gain the majority.
Pennsylvania was the only state that year where a Senate seat flipped from red to blue.
Marianne Levine and Colby Itkowitz contributed to this report.