Dave McCormick, the combat veteran-turned-businessman who is trying to wrest a crucial Pennsylvania Senate seat from one of Joe Biden’s closest allies, was moments from joining Donald Trump on stage when the assassin’s bullet struck.
McCormick reflected on the sliding doors moment this week on the floor of the RNC convention in Milwaukee, where he was mobbed by fellow Pennsylvanians every step he takes.
“It’s the craziest story ever,” said the former hedge fund CEO and father of six.
“Trump says ‘come up and speak.’ So I get up, I start walking, I go through the first lane of security, and he goes, ‘No, no, I’m gonna show my chart. You come up later.’ And then I sat down, and the shooting started two minutes later.”
As the assassin’s bullets whizzed over his head Saturday evening, McCormick watched in horror as one found its mark on Trump, miraculously only nicking his ear when he tilted his head to look at a chart of illegal-migration figures on the big screen.
“It was an incredibly scary moment,” McCormick said.
“We were an inch away from losing the president. History was playing out right in front of us and I’m still trying to get to grips with it. Imagine the consequences for America. It was a horrible, horrible tragedy for the families [of victims] and it was a wake-up call for our country.”
Ballots, not bullets
He says Trump’s close call reinforces the importance of the political arena, where conflict is resolved with ballots rather than violence.
“We have a huge fight here on ideas . . . I think the Democrats are taking our country in a way that’s going to destroy it, and I think we have ideas that are going to fix it. We can’t act like these are small differences. They’re huge differences, but we need not fight out those differences in an environment of political rhetoric that’s encouraging violence . . .
“We have to fight for the future of the country on ideas and convincing the voters, not dehumanizing the other side in a way that says the only way we can exist is if the other side is destroyed. That’s just not American.”
McCormick is the underdog against three-time Democrat incumbent Sen. Bob Casey in one of the most hotly contested elections in the nation this November.
Casey, 64, is Democrat royalty in the battleground state.
His late father, Bob Casey Sr., was the popular Pennsylvania governor 30 years ago and led the anti-abortion wing of the Democratic Party.
Casey grew up on the same street as Biden in Scranton, Pa., and their families have been close for decades.
Biden constantly plays up his Scranton roots, even though he left when he was 10.
He likes to say he is Pennsylvania’s “third senator,” and boasts that wife Jill is a “Philly girl” and Eagles fan.
Pennsylvania is the state in which Biden has spent the most time campaigning, although McCormick suspects that’s because it’s convenient to his Delaware homes.
It will be a personal rebuke to Biden if he loses the state to Trump, as polls suggest he might.
Casey, on the other hand, relies on the strength of his family brand to consistently outpoll Biden so McCormick is doing his best to tie the ailing 81-year-old president around his neck.
“There’s nobody in the Senate closer to President Biden than Bob Casey,” says McCormick, accusing his rival of hiding Biden’s cognitive decline in the dozens of campaign events they’ve attended.
Casey defended Biden after his debate debacle last month and appeared alongside him at a campaign event in Philadelphia the following weekend, leading McCormick to invite the president to spend as much time as possible in his state.
“Keep on coming because he’s wildly unpopular in Pennsylvania,” the Republican said.
“Bob Casey’s voted for him 98% of the time. Bob Casey’s said, ‘This is the guy I believe in who can govern as commander in chief for four more years.’
‘Absolutely disgraceful’
“I don’t think anybody could look at that debate and not think that there’s a high likelihood that President Biden either is not able to fulfill the responsibilities now or certainly won’t be able to fulfill them over the next 4½ years.
“And as a combat vet, whose life has depended on the decision of the commander in chief, I think it’s absolutely disgraceful.
“It has to be one of two things: He must believe, in his heart of hearts, that that’s actually true [that he can govern for four more years], which seems completely delusional, or he knows it’s not true, and he’s willing to sacrifice anything to win.”
While the latest RCP average of polls has McCormick 6 points behind Casey, the GOPer is confident he will win on the strength of Trump’s policies of checking inflation, unlocking the state’s energy wealth with more natural-gas exploration and pipeline jobs, securing the border and law & order.
“Sixty percent of Pennsylvanians live paycheck to paycheck and the 20% rise in prices is crunching them. The fentanyl crisis is destroying suburbs and rural towns . . . People are deeply distressed. They’re saying, ‘Oh, my God, we need to solve these problems,’ ” McCormick said.
“So I’m running a campaign on the ideas and leadership we need to get America and Pennsylvania moving in the right direction and that’s why I think Trump’s up so much in the polls as well.”
It wasn’t always sunshine and roses with Trump, who backed Dr. Mehmet Oz in a tough primary battle in 2022 that McCormick lost by just 900 votes, only for Oz to crash and burn in the election against John Fetterman.
While Trump never apologized to McCormick for snubbing him, the ex-president is an enthusiastic supporter today.
If McCormick manages to topple the rotten Democratic machine that has propped up Biden and the Caseys on their home ground for decades, it will mark a sea change in the old political certainties that are reflected in a convention notable for the union bosses and former Democrats who have converted to the big-tent Republican Party that Trump is forging.