Dave McCormick Speaks at Republican National Convention

MILWAUKEE — Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick, speaking on stage at the Republican National Convention Tuesday, cast the November election as a choice between “the greatness of this country and its sad, shameful decline.”

McCormick spoke the second night of the convention, as delegates from his home state sat just in front of the stage.

It was McCormick’s second moment in the national spotlight this week. He was also scheduled to be a speaker at a Trump campaign rally in Butler on Saturday, where the former president was targeted in an assassination attempt. McCormick was sitting next to Trump when the shooting began and has since spoken about the harrowing moments after the shooting in multiple interviews.

“I want to first acknowledge what happened just a few days ago in my home state,” McCormick said in his speech. “Where I witnessed from a front row seat in Butler, the extraordinary strength and determination of President Trump in a terrifying and unpredictable moment. The president rose to the occasion admirably. What a sad and terrifying day for the families of those injured or missing and for our great country.”

Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state that could decide who becomes president and, in McCormick’s race against Democratic Senator Bob Casey, which party controls the Senate.

For a state of such political importance, Pennsylvania doesn’t have many GOP leaders with national profiles. McCormick is the only Pennsylvania candidate scheduled to speak at the convention.

He was the last to speak among Republican Senate candidates, including Kari Lake, who is running in Arizona, and Bernie Moreno of Ohio.

McCormick’s speech came after a montage of photos from Trump rallies where crowds cheered loudly, juxtaposed with images of empty seats at Biden events and video footage of Biden slowly walking into a Wawa in Philadelphia with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

He called the country less protected under Biden and Casey and praised Trump. “Under President Trump, America’s future was strong and prosperous, and our adversaries were afraid to step out of line,” he said.

McCormick’s endorsement of Trump comes just two years after Trump endorsed his rival, renowned physician Mehmet Oz, in the incredibly close and brutal GOP Senate primary. Trump has slammed McCormick, calling him a friend of China after endorsing Oz days before the election.

It was unclear early in the campaign how strongly McCormick would back Trump, whom he endorsed this year but has largely avoided talking about.

The theme this week was Republicans returning to the former president. Trump’s vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, is a former critic, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s rival this year who drew thousands of protest votes, also spoke Tuesday night.

The Senate race is upon us

McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO who splits his time between Pittsburgh and Connecticut, hopes to unseat Casey, a six-term incumbent whose father was governor of Pennsylvania.

In most polls in Pennsylvania, he trails Casey by a narrow margin, edging out President Joe Biden. Casey’s campaign has said McCormick lies about living in Pennsylvania and has criticized McCormick for his leadership of Bridgewater Associates, a global hedge fund he ran that invested in China.

McCormick boasted on stage Tuesday about his accomplishments in Pennsylvania, describing himself as a “seventh-generation Pennsylvanian, born and raised in the Keystone State.”

A day after McCormick called for a suspension of negative advertising in the Senate campaign following the assassination attempt on Trump, he attacked his opponent on the convention stage.

He called Casey a do-nothing, out-of-touch, liberal career politician.

“When he votes, he votes for the tired old ideas of Joe Biden,” McCormick said, describing the election as a choice “between strength and weakness. And between America’s greatness and its sad, shameful decline.”

McCormick’s strategy has been to highlight the relationship between Casey and Biden, who are longtime allies. After Biden’s needy performance in last month’s debate, McCormick’s team ran ads claiming Casey had lied about Biden’s fitness for office.

The recent digital ad focuses on McCormick’s career as a high school wrestler and then in the military. The ad is juxtaposed with images of Biden, 81, who is facing calls to drop out of the race.

McCormick grew up about 60 miles from Scranton near Bloomsburg, where his father, James, was president of Bloomsburg University. James McCormick became head of the state’s higher education system, and his family is still well-known in the area.

He served as a cadet at West Point, as a paratrooper in Iraq during the Gulf War and later in the George W. Bush administration, where he was a top international economic adviser. He is married to Dina Powell, a former Trump administration official and former Goldman Sachs partner.