Sen. Bob Casey, the three-time incumbent in PA, will not yet concede after the Associated Press called the race for his Republican opponent Dave McCormick last night. According to the AP, McCormick is up half a percentage point, 49% to 48.5%, with an estimated 98% of the ballots counted.
“The count in Pennsylvania is still continuing. Yesterday, the vote margin shrunk by 50,000 votes and this race is now within half a point, the threshold for automatic recounts in Pennsylvania,” said Maddy McDaniel, spokesperson for Bob Casey for Senate. “With tens of thousands more votes to be counted, we are committed to ensuring every Pennsylvanian’s vote is heard and confident that at the end of that process, Senator Casey will be re-elected.”
“I have dedicated my life to making sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard, whether on the floor of the Senate or in a free and fair election,” said Sen. Casey last night. “It has been made clear there are more than 100,000 votes still to be counted. Pennsylvania is where our democratic process was born. We must allow that process to play out and ensure that every vote that is eligible to be counted will be counted. That is what Pennsylvania deserves.”
ELECTION RESULTS: Republicans Win Big in Bucks County on Pivotal Election Day
Unlike what some far-right media members and even McCormicks own campaign staff is saying, the race is far from over. As Sen. Casey pointed out, there are still votes to be counted, and if he is within the half-point margin, an automatic recount will be done. This is exactly what happened in McCormick’s 2022 primary election for the Senate, which he lost to Mehmet Oz by 972 votes. An automatic recount will start no later than the third Wednesday following the election and must be completed no later than 12:00 p.m. on the following Tuesday. The state will compensate the counties for an automatic recount.
If Casey does not finish within the 0.5 percent margin, there can still be a recount if three voters of an election district request a recount through the court of common pleas. Three voters must also request a recount in the county of their electoral district if they fill out an affidavit about suspected errors, but that is highly unlikely in this case. The deadline to request a recount must be five days after all the ballots have been cast, and there is no time limit on how long the recount can take. Payments for this option will either be a deposit of $50 in cash by the voters or they present a bond of $100 with their petition for a recount for each election district.
In the comments section of far-right news sources, there were many who tried to compare Casey not conceding to President elect Trump’s denial of the 2020 election. This, however, could not be further from the truth. Casey’s campaign is working well within the voting laws in the Keystone state, while Trump’s campaign tried to disenfranchise millions of voters in PA through lawsuits that U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann said had, “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations … unsupported by evidence.”
