Pennsylvania Senate Update as Race Shifts to Toss-Up

The Cook Political Report shifted the Pennsylvania Senate race between Democratic Senator Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick toward Republicans on Monday, just over two weeks before Election Day.
Casey has been viewed as the favorite in Pennsylvania, which is also a crucial battleground in the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
But the Senate race has now been classified from “Lean Democrat” to “toss-up” as the “trio of ‘Blue Wall’ states are getting tighter for Democrats,’ wrote editor Jessica Taylor in Monday’s update.
“The next tier of four races in our Toss Up column will likely to determine the size of a GOP majority,” Taylor wrote. “Historically, most of the contests in this column have broken one way, and we wouldn’t be shocked to see that happen again.”
Both Casey and McCormick used the shift to fundraise in posts to X (formerly Twitter).
“Pennsylvanians want CHANGE. And we’re going to deliver it,” McCormick wrote.
Casey wrote, “Cook Political Report just moved our Senate race to a toss-up. What we do right now will determine the outcome of this election.”
In a statement to Newsweek, McCormick spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said, “Dave McCormick is outworking Bob Casey every single day. It’s time for a change, and as a 7th-generation Pennsylvanian, combat veteran, and PA job creator, Dave McCormick will bring new leadership and fresh ideas to the Senate when Pennsylvania elects him on November 5.”
Newsweek also reached out to the Casey campaign for comment via email.
The update comes as polls suggest the race has tightened in the past few weeks. On Monday, FiveThirtyEight’s polling average showed Casey leading by 4.1 points, a smaller margin than one month earlier on September 21, when he led by 6.1 points.
A new Atlas Intel poll found Casey trailing by a single percentage point, the first poll of the election cycle to find McCormick leading. It found that 48.3 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Republican, compared with 47.1 percent who backed the Democrat.
It surveyed 2,048 likely voters in Pennsylvania between October 12 to October 17 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Meanwhile, a Bullfinch Group poll, conducted among 600 likely voters from October 11 to October 17, showed Casey up 7 points (50 percent to 43 percent). It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Although Casey’s lead has narrowed, polls still show him in a stronger position than Harris, who trailed Trump by 0.4 points in FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate.
Cook views four Senate races in total as toss-ups—Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, in addition to Pennsylvania. Montana’s Senate race between Democratic Senator Jon Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy is viewed as “Lean Republican,” while Arizona and Nevada are viewed as “Lean Democrat.”
Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, and Republicans are already expected to easily flip the West Virginia Senate seat being vacated by outgoing Senator Joe Manchin. With a spade of recent polls showing Sheehy with a lead in Montana, Democrats face an uphill battle to hold onto their majority.
Pennsylvania is one of the states most evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. President Joe Biden carried it by 1.2 points in 2020, while Trump won it by 0.7 points in 2016.
Casey was last up for election in 2018, when he beat back a challenge from Lou Barletta, a former Republican Congressman backed by Trump, by about 13 points.