The Pennsylvania Senate race stays the final main contest of the 2024 cycle that Choice Desk HQ has not referred to as.
Three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D) at the moment trails Republican Dave McCormick by about 35,000 votes, or 0.5 % of the vote, simply throughout the threshold required for an automated statewide recount. However whereas McCormick has declared victory and The Related Press has projected him because the winner, Casey hasn’t but conceded and The Hill’s companion DDHQ and different networks haven’t issued a race name.
“We haven’t projected a winner in the Pennsylvania Senate election for the very simple reason that it doesn’t meet our stringent 99.5% or greater level of certainty before we can make a projection,” stated Scott Tranter, the pinnacle of knowledge science for DDHQ.
Whereas greater than 95 % of votes forged are estimated to have been counted, Tranter stated DDHQ believes someplace between 80,000 and 115,000 provisional, army and abroad and home absentee ballots may very well be excellent. The precise quantity is unsure due to how counties report their votes, however these votes might closely favor Casey, giving him an opportunity at pulling off a win.
“With McCormick’s margin less than 40,000 votes and the potential for these ballots to break towards Casey in a significant way DDHQ needs to see more of these votes counted before a projection can be made,” Tranter stated.
The race has turn out to be significantly contentious over the previous week with Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) initially declining to ask McCormick to the brand new members’ orientation this week. A spokesperson for him stated Schumer would invite the winner as soon as all of the votes are counted, however the senator confronted pushback from Republicans and varied fellow members, together with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Schumer’s workplace quickly after introduced that McCormick had obtained an invite for the orientation.
Casey’s marketing campaign has maintained as extra votes have are available that it’s ready for all votes to be counted because it has not given in to calls, significantly from Republicans, to concede.
“My priority has always been standing up for the people of Pennsylvania. Across our Commonwealth, close to 7 million people cast their votes in a free and fair election,” Casey stated in an announcement on Tuesday. “Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election. The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.”
McCormick has in the meantime been emphasizing on his X account the assorted native Pennsylvania retailers which have declared him the winner, lots of them based mostly on AP’s name however not all.
Whereas Republicans have already been projected to win the Senate, the result of the Pennsylvania race may very well be crucial to deciding the functioning of the federal government for the following two years and the way every celebration’s probabilities look heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
