After days of counting ballots, Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick emerged as the winner over incumbent Democrat Sen. Bob Casey.
McCormick’s margin of victory was roughly 32,000 votes out of nearly 7 million cast across the state, or about half a percentage point. Casey has indicated he will not yet concede to McCormick, saying there are enough outstanding and provisional ballots left to potentially change the result.
While many races down ballot will lag in the total number of votes compared to a presidential election, Casey ran behind Harris in terms of a percentage of votes he received. In Allegheny County, Casey underperformed Harris by 5,000 votes, or .25%.
In Bucks County, while Trump flipped the suburb from their 2020 support for Biden, the vote count in the Senate race showed Casey ahead of McCormick by just 2,000 votes. To the north of Bucks, in Northampton County, McCormick replicated Trump’s flip from Democrat to Republican, pulling ahead of Casey by roughly 1,700 votes in the county.
The morning after the election, an analysis conducted by a Pittsburgh-based consulting firm that worked for McCormick argued the outstanding votes, those yet to be counted, are almost certainly unlikely to account for enough Casey votes to overtake McCormick.
As of 6:30 PM on Thursday, the Associated Press and Fox News called the race for McCormick while NBC News has yet to call the race. Given the close results, Pennsylvania state law may trigger an automatic recount. A recount is required when an election is decided by .5% or less.
Some argue that Sen. Casey should concede and not push for a recount, echoing the argument that the number of outstanding ballots in Democrat strongholds is not enough for Casey to overcome his 32,000-vote deficit.
