Bob Casey Concedes Pennsylvania Senate Race to David McCormick

(Bloomberg) -- Senator Bob Casey has conceded to his Republican opponent, David McCormick, in a Pennsylvania race that was so close that it triggered a recount.

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“I just called Dave McCormick to congratulate him on his election to represent the people of Pennsylvania in the US Senate,” Casey, 64, said in a video posted Thursday evening on X. He was first elected in 2006.

McCormick, 59, was declared the winner by the Associated Press earlier this month until the state ordered the recount because the margin was less than 0.5%.

Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt said that this was only the eighth time that the recount provision was triggered since 2004 when the state law was passed.

One of those five recounts was the 2022 Republican primary, when McCormick, a former chief executive officer of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates, came up short against the physician and television personality Mehmet Oz, who ended up losing against John Fetterman. This time, McCormick giant rode a wave of enthusiasm for Donald Trump and billionaire contributions to his campaign to trounce Casey, a scion of a Democratic political dynasty.

His father, also named Bob Casey, was the state’s governor. This week, Trump chose Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The freshman senator led Connecticut-based Bridgewater for more than a decade following his stint in the George W. Bush administration and combat duty in the first Gulf War.

Casey and his allies painted McCormick as someone who lacked meaningful Pennsylvania connections, having bought a home in Pittsburgh only in 2021. McCormick’s team portrayed Casey as out of touch, assailing him for his support of the Biden administration’s economic policies.

(Updates with Casey’s father, Oz appointment, in sixth paragraph. An earlier version corrected that Oz was defeated by John Fetterman, not Casey)

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