Why did Bob Casey lose?

[Sir Mohamed]

This seemed kind of odd, tbh. If Baldwin, Slotkin and to a lesser extent Rosen and Gallego lost as well, I would understand it. A red wave would have been the obvious answer. But all of these Dems luckily won their elections and Dems even came very close to winning back the House as well, despite Trump doing far better than in 2016, when the GOP swept the House and won more than 240 seats. While PA-Sen was close, it seemed like a huge outlier. McCormick wasn't a particularly strong candidate and could easily have been tainted as an out of touch venture capitalist who represents Wall Street instead of Scranton.

Did Casey run such a bad campaign? Is he the Bill Nelson of the cycle? He's well established household name in PA who won all of his previous races with ease. How did he lose and consequently put Dems in a very tough spot for a trifecta in 2029.

That's also one nobody, as far as I recall, on the forum got right. If another senator beyond Tester and Brown was going to lose, it was either Rosen or Baldwin. Even users predicting Trump had Casey as the clear favorite in PA.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Harris and Walz did worse in Bucks county than Biden did and cause him to lose they said on MSNBC that Harris performed Hillary levels in all the swing states

[iceman]

One thing, Pennsylvania republicans did very well on all statewide elections that night and won all the races except for the Pennsylvania house which they lost by 1 seat.

[These birds not meant to fly alone]

Frankly, I and many others overestimated his strength as a candidate. It seems as though he had lost his image of "Pennsylvania's guy" and instead was successfully branded as a career politician who doesn't actually do anything. McCormick was able to harness the anger towards the Biden admin and paint him as a rubber stamp for their agenda. Ultimately, when voters lose faith in your ability to get sh*t done and resist politics as usual, it's going to doom your candidacy.

[VALibertarian]

Frankly, I and many others overestimated his strength as a candidate. It seems as though he had lost his image of "Pennsylvania's guy" and instead was successfully branded as a career politician who doesn't actually do anything. McCormick was able to harness the anger towards the Biden admin and paint him as a rubber stamp for their agenda. Ultimately, when voters lose faith in your ability to get sh*t done and resist politics as usual, it's going to doom your candidacy.

Casey's PA family name and incumbency (which I assumed were to his advantage) were turned against him successfully - talking with PA relatives, it seems like he was able to be painted as someone who had traded in his PA bonafides for just a rubber stamp democrat, and combined with Trump's strength in the state managed to eek McCormick over the line.

[Fancyarcher]

I don't think it's anything more simple than Trump winning Pennsylvania by a larger margin than Michigan or Wisconsin (neither Baldwin nor Slotkin outran Harris by that much either), and Casey running a foolish, lackadaisical campaign, under the assumption that there were more ticket-splitting voters than there actually were.

[These birds not meant to fly alone]

Frankly, I and many others overestimated his strength as a candidate. It seems as though he had lost his image of "Pennsylvania's guy" and instead was successfully branded as a career politician who doesn't actually do anything. McCormick was able to harness the anger towards the Biden admin and paint him as a rubber stamp for their agenda. Ultimately, when voters lose faith in your ability to get sh*t done and resist politics as usual, it's going to doom your candidacy.

Casey's PA family name and incumbency (which I assumed were to his advantage) were turned against him successfully - talking with PA relatives, it seems like he was able to be painted as someone who had traded in his PA bonafides for just a rubber stamp democrat, and combined with Trump's strength in the state managed to eek McCormick over the line.

Yep. It's fascinating because we know there are plenty of examples of people getting elected in states where their relatives were popular (Beshear in KY, Menendez Jr in NJ, etc) but it's starting to feel like that as a phenomenon is dwindling and voters are less likely to elect candidates just based on being "so and so's son" or whatever. It does make me wonder how members of the Trump family will do if they decide to run for office in statewide races, because I feel like they could buck the trend but Trump is obviously a national figure and not merely just a statewide figure the way that the aforementioned examples are.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Swept up in Pennsylvania just kind of not feeling Democrats this year, and didn't do enough that Baldwin and Slotkin apparently did.

[Zedonathin2020]

He ran a horrible campaign and took voters for granted. That's all

[UncleSam]

Everyone blaming Casey is delusional.

He lost because Harris lost the state by almost two points, that is all. He almost won in spite of that. This is how much these Dems outran the top of the ticket by:
Casey - 1.5%
Slotkin - 1.7%
Baldwin - 1.7%

The difference between these results is statistical noise. Casey would have won if Harris had done even slightly better in Pennsylvania. He also outran most of the downballot statewide Dem row office candidates.

Casey was not a bad candidate, he just had a tough draw and lost by the skin of his teeth. Unlucky, in a word.

[Tekken_Guy]

Everyone blaming Casey is delusional.

He lost because Harris lost the state by almost two points, that is all. He almost won in spite of that. This is how much these Dems outran the top of the ticket by:
Casey - 1.5%
Slotkin - 1.7%
Baldwin - 1.7%

The difference between these results is statistical noise. Casey would have won if Harris had done even slightly better in Pennsylvania. He also outran most of the downballot statewide Dem row office candidates.

Casey was not a bad candidate, he just had a tough draw and lost by the skin of his teeth. Unlucky, in a word.

I think the bigger question is how Sherrod Brown was able to overperform by as much as he did. He should have lost by 9 points based on the PA/Mi/WI senate results.

[For Trump, everything. For immigrants, the law]

He probably didn't expect to be in trouble this year, so he ran a somewhat lazy campaign until it was too late. The same thing almost happened to Baldwin, but she got her act together just in time.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Everyone blaming Casey is delusional.

He lost because Harris lost the state by almost two points, that is all. He almost won in spite of that. This is how much these Dems outran the top of the ticket by:
Casey - 1.5%
Slotkin - 1.7%
Baldwin - 1.7%

The difference between these results is statistical noise. Casey would have won if Harris had done even slightly better in Pennsylvania. He also outran most of the downballot statewide Dem row office candidates.

Casey was not a bad candidate, he just had a tough draw and lost by the skin of his teeth. Unlucky, in a word.

I think the bigger question is how Sherrod Brown was able to overperform by as much as he did. He should have lost by 9 points based on the PA/Mi/WI senate results.

I would say OH was easily as much - if not even more so - a case of Moreno underperforming as Brown overperforming. If you look at the senate results Moreno was barely able to hit 50% of the vote and received 300,000 fewer raw votes than did Trump. Clearly there were a lot of Trump voters not sold on Moreno, nowhere near as many Trump voters willing to cross right over for Brown which is why he ended up losing by a not especially close margin.

I think if Brown had faced a more established, credentialed Republican candidate such as a member of DeWine’s administration he would have lost by a margin more akin to Tester given the national environment. If Wikipedia is anything to go by he actually ended up getting a fractionally lower share of the overall vote than Osborn did in Nebraska!

[Tekken_Guy]

Everyone blaming Casey is delusional.

He lost because Harris lost the state by almost two points, that is all. He almost won in spite of that. This is how much these Dems outran the top of the ticket by:
Casey - 1.5%
Slotkin - 1.7%
Baldwin - 1.7%

The difference between these results is statistical noise. Casey would have won if Harris had done even slightly better in Pennsylvania. He also outran most of the downballot statewide Dem row office candidates.

Casey was not a bad candidate, he just had a tough draw and lost by the skin of his teeth. Unlucky, in a word.

I think the bigger question is how Sherrod Brown was able to overperform by as much as he did. He should have lost by 9 points based on the PA/Mi/WI senate results.

I would say OH was easily as much - if not even more so - a case of Moreno underperforming as Brown overperforming. If you look at the senate results Moreno was barely able to hit 50% of the vote and received 300,000 fewer raw votes than did Trump. Clearly there were a lot of Trump voters not sold on Moreno, nowhere near as many Trump voters willing to cross right over for Brown which is why he ended up losing by a not especially close margin.

I think if Brown had faced a more established, credentialed Republican candidate such as a member of DeWine’s administration he would have lost by a margin more akin to Tester given the national environment. If Wikipedia is anything to go by he actually ended up getting a fractionally lower share of the overall vote than Osborn did in Nebraska!

And speaking of Tester, Sheehy should have easily cleared a double digit margin of victory.

[#LANK]

The most honest answer I can give that aren't institutional factors such as the malaise of Philly Dems, McCormick opening his own damn hedge fund wallet along w/megadonors to bombard the airwaves w/Super-PACs, or partywide issues on CoL/immigration is Casey flip-flopped on the Assault Weapons Ban. Whether we like it or not from Santorum to the way Conor Lamb won his district standing against the FAWB's reinstatement right after Stoneman Douglas we've seen time and time again that there is an electorally significant number of Keystoners who will consider voting Democratic until the moment you dare suggest ANY gun restrictions.

 The reason I so strongly believe flip-flopping on background check expansion/the FAWB's reinstatement hurt Casey is because it's so well documented that gun control advocates/gun safety initiatives SELDOM IF EVER perform as well as they publicly poll at the ballot box. In contrast we know him evolving to drop the 20-week ban on abortion did not hurt him because abortion rights initiatives have passed in Trump states such as Missouri, Montana, etc.

[CentristRepublican]

Frankly, I and many others overestimated his strength as a candidate. It seems as though he had lost his image of "Pennsylvania's guy" and instead was successfully branded as a career politician who doesn't actually do anything. McCormick was able to harness the anger towards the Biden admin and paint him as a rubber stamp for their agenda. Ultimately, when voters lose faith in your ability to get sh*t done and resist politics as usual, it's going to doom your candidacy.

Imo it's not so much that Casey was unpopular, he just has zero crossover appeal. The tying Casey to Biden/Harris didn't so much doom him as it did tie his fortunes directly to theirs. Greatly reduce Casey's overperformance (he still did overperform, just by like one point and change instead of a decent amount) so that there's a ~40-50% chance of victory (whereas if Casey can outrun Biden/Harris by ~5 points or more as he did previously, then there's a ~10% chance of winning for McCormick, if even that).

[CentristRepublican]

Everyone blaming Casey is delusional.

He lost because Harris lost the state by almost two points, that is all. He almost won in spite of that. This is how much these Dems outran the top of the ticket by:
Casey - 1.5%
Slotkin - 1.7%
Baldwin - 1.7%

The difference between these results is statistical noise. Casey would have won if Harris had done even slightly better in Pennsylvania. He also outran most of the downballot statewide Dem row office candidates.

Casey was not a bad candidate, he just had a tough draw and lost by the skin of his teeth. Unlucky, in a word.

I think the bigger question is how Sherrod Brown was able to overperform by as much as he did. He should have lost by 9 points based on the PA/Mi/WI senate results.

I would say OH was easily as much - if not even more so - a case of Moreno underperforming as Brown overperforming. If you look at the senate results Moreno was barely able to hit 50% of the vote and received 300,000 fewer raw votes than did Trump. Clearly there were a lot of Trump voters not sold on Moreno, nowhere near as many Trump voters willing to cross right over for Brown which is why he ended up losing by a not especially close margin.

I think if Brown had faced a more established, credentialed Republican candidate such as a member of DeWine’s administration he would have lost by a margin more akin to Tester given the national environment. If Wikipedia is anything to go by he actually ended up getting a fractionally lower share of the overall vote than Osborn did in Nebraska!

Yeah, other posters - including those from Ohio - have testified that Moreno was quite a mediocre candidate in a way ppl like Rogers and McCormick certainly weren't.

I think MT's Tim Sheehy is a similar case, where he was a C- or low-B tier candidate who toppled an incumbent only because of the state's partisanship (mainly this) + the friendly national environment.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

PA isn't a safe D state anymore and neither are WI, MI they voted twice for Trump these same three Midwestern states have failed to elect a statewide blk make or female

MI has open carry arms just like TX and WI and PA are pro gun too, that's why. Whereas MN, IL, NY, CA, NJ are anti gun rights


PA, MI and WI have moved to the center because of guns, by picking Walz she made her bed by losing Walz is pro conceal weapons ban


That's why Harris lost AZ by 5 because she didn't win Maricopa by a large number

[EastOfEden]

Shortest possible answer: asleep at the wheel, Bill Nelson vibes. As others have said, his incumbency and family name were successfully turned against him. He largely failed to counter this - asleep at the wheel. Even then, he very nearly won.

Also, Pennsylvania has the most Trump-only voters of the Three, and is the state where Trumpism plays best. There really is a distinct Trumpist fervor there that simply isn't present in Michigan and Wisconsin. Plenty of anecdotals confirm this, as well as comparison between the 2016 and 2012 results. There's a real argument that it was Democratic turnout failure and/or Obama-Trump voters that doomed Clinton in Michigan and Wisconsin, but former non-voters showing up for Trump that did it in Pennsylvania.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

I already said why Bob Casey lost, PA, WI and MI are moving to the center on guns MI has open carry like TX they aren't CA, IL and NY on gun control but the lackluster Walz surely didn't help


Polls over and over again said that Walz shouldn't have been the VP nominees, Beshear is certainly a centrist

[2,284,967]

Everyone blaming Casey is delusional.

He lost because Harris lost the state by almost two points, that is all. He almost won in spite of that. This is how much these Dems outran the top of the ticket by:
Casey - 1.5%
Slotkin - 1.7%
Baldwin - 1.7%

The difference between these results is statistical noise. Casey would have won if Harris had done even slightly better in Pennsylvania. He also outran most of the downballot statewide Dem row office candidates.

Casey was not a bad candidate, he just had a tough draw and lost by the skin of his teeth. Unlucky, in a word.

I think the bigger question is how Sherrod Brown was able to overperform by as much as he did. He should have lost by 9 points based on the PA/Mi/WI senate results.

Brown was an institution in Ohio...

[wbrocks67]

There's quite a lot of factors and many have been discussed in this thread at this point, but I think it's truly a confluence of many-

- Trump winning by 1.7%, highest of the blue wall, helped drag McCormick over the finish line
- PA GOP simply had a very good night, just look at the row offices. McCormick was actually the worst statewide GOP performer and got the least amount of votes out of all of them
- $$$$ - Casey had a lot of money, but McCormick had more - his super PAC dominated the airwaves and by the time Casey could catch up, the damage was already done. Dems made a mistake here in letting Casey be outspent at any point in time
- I do think there is some credence to Casey's crossover appeal being diminished and the "Casey hasn't done anything" stuff in the ads, mostly because Casey is a strong senator but he's not a showboat and flies under the radar, so unfortunately for him, many people don't really know what he's done
- Casey being a mediocre campaigner caught up to him. Bob is great and has been a wonderful senator, but he's not a good public speaker. Unfortunately, that stuff counts, and he's just not enough of a dynamic presence. McCormick really isn't either, but again, with the other factors, it allowed McCormick to squeak by
- Given PA GOP's recent candidates like Scott Wagner, Oz, Barletta, etc., McCormick was able to make himself look a little more normal than the rest and I think that went a long way. Just look at Casey's performance in the suburbs, it was pretty mediocre all things considered. I think there was definitely a few folks who have been voting Dem a lot recently who may have thought he may not be that bad, or split Harris/McCormick.
- Casey was unable to succesfully define McCormick early. Him and his team just didn't have the same juice that Fetterman's team did to define McCormick as out of touch and a carpetbagger. The strategy just wasn't really cohesive enough. Casey's social media presence being nil also didn't help with key constituencies

All in all, a bit of a combo of a lot of things. I still don't find McCormick to be an impressive candidate, I think he mostly got lucky, especially given his wallet and the amount of money he was able to have spent on his behalf in this race. However, Bob Casey of all people being ~40,000 votes below Harris's vote total was not a good result. He may have overperformed her among margin, but the raw vote underperformance was really bad. McCormick's was much worse, but he benefited by Trump winning the state by 100k. If anything, McCormick's extreme undervote from Trump (to the tune of ~150k) tells me that he infact mostly got lucky here.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

McCormick lucked out and won because Harris underperforming in Bucks and Maricopa county

[Zenobiyl]

Asleep at the wheel

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

We studied this blk politics secular swing states are moving to the right right because Ds believe in tax hikes while blk politics is on the left due to reparations. We are gonna get blk reparations