PITTSBURGH — West Point graduate and native western Pennsylvanian David McCormick filed paperwork in the Keystone State on Wednesday to run for the open U.S. Senate seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.
McCormick joins four other Republican contenders — commentator Kathy Barnette, former ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands, heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz and real estate developer Jeff Bartos. The former front-runner, Sean Parnell, quit the race last fall after losing a contentious custody battle in his divorce case.
In an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner just before Christmas, McCormick spoke of his plans to enter the race. “I’ve got more than half of my life living in Pennsylvania,” he said, “and then another 13 or 14 years not in Pennsylvania, in public service, public life. And then the last 12 years, I’ve been at Bridgewater. And so, for me, this is a real coming home. And I’m excited about the possibilities. And I’m happy to be back in the commonwealth.”
The former Treasury Department official in the George W. Bush administration was born in the city of Washington, about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh. He left the area for Bloomsburg at the age of 7, when his father took a position as the president of the local university there. The former Army captain served five years in the military, where he received a Bronze Star.
Following his military service, he earned a doctorate from Princeton University and then returned to western Pennsylvania to run FreeMarkets, an online auction service for industrial equipment and services. After FreeMarkets was sold, Bush appointed him undersecretary of the Treasury Department for international affairs. He rejoined the private sector after that and worked his way up to chief executive of Bridgewater Associates, a global investment firm.
McCormick’s wife, Dina Powell, served from 2017-18 as the U.S. deputy national security adviser for strategy to President Donald Trump. The two recently purchased a home situated a block from where he used to live in Pittsburgh when he ran FreeMarkets. He still owns the family farm in Bloomsburg.
McCormick resigned from his position at Bridgewater on Jan. 3 in preparation for his Senate run.
He has already earned the support of the influential former state party Chairman Rob Gleason, who long understood, despite many in the state party stridently disagreeing with him, that Trump would win Pennsylvania in 2016.
“He is the one. He is the guy that will win in a general,” Gleason said confidently in an interview.
Biden won Pennsylvania narrowly in 2020, but he had no coattails. In down-ballot contests, Republicans won two out of the three statewide elected row offices, held healthy majorities in both the state House and state Senate in contests in which they were predicted to lose, and held two congressional seats in Dauphin and Bucks counties in House races few pundits thought they’d retain.
Despite the state’s center-right shift, all four Democrats vying for their party’s nomination — Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, outgoing Mt. Lebanon Rep. Conor Lamb, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, and Montgomery County Chairwoman Val Arkoosh — have all pitched leftward in their positions and messaging.
Allegheny County Republican Committee Chairman Sam DeMarco said in our interview in late December, after meeting with McCormick, that it was hard not to be impressed by him.
“He has served his country, worked on his family Christmas tree farm, so he knows how to get his hands dirty,” DeMarco said, “but he also has an intellect about the economy that would serve as an important asset as someone that would represent a state as diverse as Pennsylvania is economically.”
To win a majority in the Senate this year, Republicans have to hold this seat. Democrats know they have to gain it in order to keep their majority. This will therefore become one of the most expensive and competitive races this cycle.
Pennsylvania is considered a toss-up state in this year’s general election. Biden is a dead weight for his party — only 32% of registered Pennsylvania voters say he was doing an “excellent” or “good” job, whereas 47% say he’s doing a “poor job.”
McCormick, who on Thursday morning officially announced his candidacy on Fox News, will spend the next few days meeting with voters in the western Pennsylvania region before embarking on a weekslong statewide tour, primarily in his pickup truck.
