ABOVE PHOTO: Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks earlier than President Joe Biden about his infrastructure agenda whereas saying funding to improve Philadelphia’s water services and substitute lead pipes, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, at Belmont Water Remedy Heart in Philadelphia. Casey mentioned he’ll search a fourth time period, bringing unmatched identify recognition in Pennsylvania politics to his occasion’s protection of a seat in a presidential battleground state. (AP Picture/Patrick Semansky, File)
By Marc Levy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey raised greater than $4 million within the final three months — his greatest fundraising quarter ever — as he awaits a Republican challenger to his reelection bid within the vital battleground state of Pennsylvania, his marketing campaign mentioned Wednesday.
Casey’s marketing campaign mentioned the fundraising consequence beat the earlier greatest quarter of his profession by greater than $1.2 million.
The marketing campaign is reporting almost $6 million in its checking account. That money might show essential in making certain Casey has the sources to efficiently navigate a marketing campaign in one of many nation’s most politically aggressive states.
The second-quarter haul is giving Casey’s marketing campaign some optimism that Democrats nonetheless get pleasure from help within the state following John Fetterman’s 5-percentage-point victory in final yr’s race for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat.
Casey, 63, is gearing as much as search his fourth time period in workplace. He’s a key ally of labor unions and President Joe Biden and provides Democrats a robust candidate of their protection of a seat in what’s in any other case anticipated to be a troublesome 2024 marketing campaign to maintain their 51-49 Senate majority.
Fetterman, who was Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, additionally reported elevating $4 million in his first quarter as a Senate candidate in 2021. Fetterman eclipsed that with a $22.4 million third quarter in 2022 on his approach to beating Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Final yr’s Senate race was Pennsylvania’s costliest ever, at $420 million complete, in keeping with OpenSecrets, a Washington-based nonprofit group that tracks marketing campaign finance and lobbying information.
Casey comes into the 2024 race with sturdy identify recognition — his father was a two-term Pennsylvania governor — and Republicans should not have a deep pool of potential recruits.
One Republican who could run is former hedge fund CEO David McCormick, who narrowly misplaced a bruising and costly GOP nomination for the Senate in 2022 to Oz.
McCormick has mentioned he’s “severely contemplating” operating. He brings deep pockets and connections throughout the worlds of presidency, finance and Republican politics following a profession on Wall Road and on the highest ranges of President George W. Bush’s administration.
However many Republicans acknowledge that it will likely be troublesome — or not possible — to beat Casey.
In Pennsylvania, Casey has run statewide seven instances already, successful six of these races, and has by no means run a detailed race for the Senate. He gained his 2018 race by 13 proportion factors and stored an energetic schedule on the marketing campaign path final yr by serving to Fetterman.
