Pennsylvania’s McCormick taking steps that hint at potential 2024 Senate campaign

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Dave McCormick isn’t saying if he’s mulling another Senate run in Pennsylvania in 2024, but the Republican candidate who came within a thousand votes of winning the 2022 GOP Senate nomination in the crucial northeastern battleground state is making moves that signal a possible campaign may be in the works.

McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, West Point graduate, Gulf War combat veteran and Treasury Department official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, has been attending receptions with influential Republican officials, activists, and donors in recent weeks. And with a new book titled "Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America" publishing in March, a book tour is in the works that would likely take McCormick across the Keystone State and beyond.

McCormick conceded in June to Mehmet Oz after trailing the cardiac surgeon and celebrity doctor by less than a thousand votes in the Republican Senate primary. Oz narrowly captured the GOP nomination in part thanks to the support and endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who remains the most influential politician in the Republican Party.

While McCormick’s wife Dina Powell McCormick worked in the Trump administration as a deputy national security adviser, the former president, after endorsing Oz, criticized McCormick as a "candidate of special interests and globalists and the Washington establishment."

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Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, accompanied by former President Donald Trump, at a campaign rally in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, May 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

But Oz was one of a handful of high-profile Republican nominees heavily backed by Trump who went down to defeat in the general election. Among the others were Arizona’s Kari Lake and Blake Masters, Wisconsin’s Tim Michels, Nevada’s Adam Laxalt, and Michigan's Tudor Dixon.

The latest was GOP nominee Herschel Walker, who was defeated last week by Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia’s key Senate runoff election, which gave the Democrats a 51-49 majority in the chamber. A growing chorus of voices in the GOP is blaming Trump for setbacks and for turning what was hoped to be a red wave in the midterms into a trickle.

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A Republican strategist in Pennsylvania, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, pointed to the disappointing performances by Trump-endorsed nominees in some key races, arguing that "McCormick probably looks even better today than a month ago."

Dave McCormick and his wife Dinah Powell talk to supporters during his returns watch party in the Pennsylvania primary election, May 17, 2022, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

Veteran national Republican media consultant John Brabender told Fox News, "I believe that if Dave McCormick had been our nominee in 2022, he would now be in the United States Senate."

"There’s no reason to believe other than the fact that he would be a remarkably strong candidate in 2024," said Brabender, whose offices are headquartered in Pennsylvania.

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A Republican source in McCormick’s wider political orbit shared that "there are people both nationally and in Pennsylvania urging him to run," but added that "he’s definitely not 100% sold on running again," and that no decision would be likely until March.

"If he were to get in, the difference this time compared to last time is you’d see a lot of people try to clear the field for him," the source emphasized.

Republicans will enjoy a favorable map in the 2024 cycle as they aim to regain the Senate majority they lost in the 2020 elections. Democrats will be defending 23 of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs next cycle, and of their 23 seats, seven are in states won by former President Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020. One of those seats is held by three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania.

Casey, who hasn’t said whether he’ll seek another six-year term in the Senate, won’t be easy to defeat if he runs for re-election. The former state treasurer and son of a former two-term governor is extremely well known in Pennsylvania and won his 2018 re-election by 13 points.

A week ago McCormick was very visible at the Pennsylvania Society, a series of dinners, receptions, mixers and fundraisers for Pennsylvania’s political and social leaders that’s held each year in New York City.

Among the gatherings McCormick attended was the Pennsylvania Republican state party luncheon.

Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick arrives to vote in Pennsylvania's primary, in Pittsburgh, on May 17, 2022. (Fox News Madison Scarpino)

McCormick’s a Pennsylvania native but lived for 12 years in Connecticut before moving back to the Keystone State ahead of his Senate campaign launch. Like Oz, who moved from New Jersey before running for the Senate, McCormick was attacked by other primary rivals as a carpetbagger. His rivals also accused him of being weak on China, as they pointed to investment ties to China by his former hedge fund.

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As McCormick considers a 2024 Senate run, he isn’t the only Republican mulling a bid.

Another name that comes up is state treasurer Stacy Garrity.