Democratic Sen. Bob Casey is among the longest-serving senators in Pennsylvania’s historical past. But his run of electoral success ended final month when he narrowly misplaced to Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
Now, with simply weeks remaining in his 18-year Senate profession, Casey is reflecting on what went mistaken for him and his get together in what was probably the most consequential battleground state on the map. Casey was the one Democratic Senate candidate operating in a presidential battleground who misplaced his race, falling to McCormick by roughly 15,200 votes as President-elect Donald Trump constructed a much more substantial victory within the Keystone State than he did in 2016.
Although Democrats had been wrecked up and down the poll in Pennsylvania, Casey doesn’t suppose the get together wants to tear up its playbook. In reality, he thinks the issue that can assist them probably the most shouldn’t be having to face Trump on the poll once more.
“I feel he’s about as robust a Republican candidate as they’ve had for president in my lifetime,” mentioned Casey, who has served in statewide workplace for 3 a long time and whose father served as a two-term governor of the state.
In an interview with NBC News, Casey mentioned this yr’s marketing campaign, what’s subsequent for him and his get together, and the highlights of his Senate profession.
This interview has been calmly edited for size and readability.
NBC NEWS: What went mistaken in Pennsylvania this yr?
CASEY: Well, I feel we’ll know much more over time, however clearly, when President Trump was operating as robust as he ran, that was going to, and it did, have an effect on the outcomes all throughout the ticket. So that’s definitely one, what I might name a considerable issue.
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Just in our race, I feel the mixed impression of the Trump wave, plus the $150 million spent towards me by three tremendous PACs, that had an impression, in addition to the presidential race. It’s tougher for me to research that as a result of I simply wasn’t paying as shut consideration to the information there. But clearly, for most likely quite a lot of causes, President Trump had his strongest efficiency ever in Pennsylvania of the three races and received about 50%.
NBC NEWS: And why do you suppose he did run as robust as he did in Pennsylvania? I imply, you will have served there in elected workplace for a lot of, a few years, and have seen the state undergo numerous political cycles. What do you suppose this time round made it so fertile for the previous president?
CASEY: Well, I do suppose that the financial system — and principally the driving force of that was inflation, regardless that it had come down considerably, method down effectively earlier than the election — there was a way amongst people that the financial system was higher beneath his administration. I don’t suppose that’s correct, however that’s the notion that individuals had, and that if he was in a position to obtain that when, he might do it once more. So that drove it.
And I feel there’s no query about the truth that border safety was a significant situation, and we heard about that on a regular basis. But I feel when you needed to boil it down to 1 or two phrases, it’d be “prices” or “price of residing.” And that’s why once I was making the argument on greedflation and shrinkflation, confronting the actual fact, the truth that enormous multinational companies had been jacking up their costs, individuals understood that I used to be preventing for them, they usually understood that that was the truth of their lives, they usually knew that company greed is among the drivers of inflation.
So I feel that’s one of many explanation why our race ended up as shut because it did, as a result of we had been, I used to be, connecting on the financial points, and that definitely made our prospects possibly a little bit higher.
NBC NEWS: I do know you and President Biden have a relationship that dates again a few years. When you take a look at your race and simply how shut it was, do you suppose it could have made a distinction if the president had both gotten out of the race earlier, had stepped apart to permit for a main, or would it not have been probably decisive in your path if he had stayed in and campaigned by means of the election with himself on the high of the ticket?
CASEY: I suppose the quick reply is I don’t know and no person is aware of. It’s simply all hypothesis. But look, I’ve had an excellent privilege to serve the individuals of our state for 28 years … and I used to be additionally lucky to be within the Senate at moments the place laws not solely handed, however laws that I labored on was passing that can form the lives of Americans, not only for years, however for generations.
NBC NEWS: Have you spoken with President Biden because the election? What ideas did he share with you? And then is there something that you simply’re actually searching for him to perform earlier than leaving workplace, in addition to is there anything that you simply would like to perform earlier than leaving workplace?
CASEY: Yes, I’ve spoken to [the president] however not at any size the place we had been analyzing the election. And I do suppose that it’ll take longer to totally analyze the election.
But primary, I hope he’ll proceed as he has to get an increasing number of sources to Ukraine, to battle towards a murderous dictator, Vladimir Putin, and to fortify the Ukrainian navy to allow them to proceed to confront that enemy. And by the best way, an enemy of the United States as effectively. I don’t know what the subsequent administration will do, however I hope they don’t abandon the individuals of Ukraine and permit Vladimir Putin to take over a free individuals.
Obviously, on the home entrance, something the president and his administration can do to get {dollars} out the door, whether or not it’s infrastructure {dollars} or different {dollars} for Pennsylvania, we’ll proceed to work with them on that.
I’m nonetheless attempting to get laws handed too as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act, probably, however it’s an uphill climb to make some progress on so-called “outbound funding,” to have the ability to restrict the funding that American companies make in China that might beneath undermine our nationwide safety, is laws that Sen. Cornyn from Texas and I labored on for years. We received 91 votes within the Senate a few years in the past. … We wish to really go it and have it enacted into regulation.
I’m additionally working to lastly get into regulation — I imply, I could not get there — however we’re pushing very laborious to go laws that will lastly forestall corporations from paying subminimum wages to individuals with disabilities. … I’ve had bipartisan laws within the Senate to get that carried out. We’re hoping we will full that by the tip of the yr.
NBC NEWS: I’m certain you’ve seen some people that pay quite a bit consideration to elections have been speculating whether or not Pennsylvania could be going the best way of Ohio, the place it was as soon as a really aggressive state, Democrats routinely received there, and now they’re primarily locked out, particularly after Sen. Sherrod Brown was defeated final month. Do you see this yr’s election as an aberration, a pace bump amid a protracted line of Democratic wins which have occurred [in Pennsylvania] in recent times? Or are you involved that this could be a harbinger of extra Republican wins to return?
CASEY: I feel it’s most likely untimely to make an evaluation as as to if we’re going in a single path decidedly or the opposite. But I’ll say there have been elements on this election that received’t be at play, or received’t be related in 2028. And one among them [is] Donald Trump is not going to be a candidate for president. … I feel he’s about as robust a Republican candidate as they’ve had for president in my lifetime.
Nixon received by a landslide in 1972, Reagan had a landslide as effectively, however since these days, since at the very least because the early ’80s, they haven’t had a presidential candidate that ran as strongly in Pennsylvania as he did.
NBC NEWS: I don’t know what number of conversations you’ve had with others within the get together about how you can transfer ahead and what if something wants to alter, however what do you suppose the get together must adapt or alter to to achieve success sooner or later?
CASEY: Part of it isn’t to rewrite the entire method. Part of it’s to do what I’ve been doing, and quite a lot of senators have carried out, governors have carried out, however do extra of it, and that’s to go to each group, as I’ve been doing for years, to speak about not simply native points, however native priorities that you simply’re engaged on. And I used to be in a position to go to each group within the state, and I might level to particular investments in that county that occurred solely simply within the final 4 years. I didn’t even have to return even additional than 4 years.
So we’ve to proceed to do extra of that, to focus, to make the connection for constituents … between the work you’re doing in Washington and the way you ship for them.
I feel we’ve to proceed to talk on to this situation of prices. That’s why this debate in 2025 in regards to the tax invoice shall be vital, as a result of somehow households are going to lose or win within the tax invoice. There’s not going to be a lot in between. Either working households, middle-class households, will get a major tax break, or a major — possibly even unprecedented — tax lower will go to huge companies, the billionaires and those that are the wealthiest within the nation, as a result of you possibly can’t do each. It’s simply unattainable to try this.
And that can inform America quite a bit about who’s on their aspect, particularly when you’re within the center class or struggling to get to the center class. And I feel it’s going to be critically vital for Democrats to put out early the stakes of that debate and to inform individuals what’s at stake for them and their household, after which battle very laborious to win that battle, so the center class wins and large companies and billionaires lose.
And I feel it’s not one thing the place you possibly can attempt to break up it down the center. Because final time Republicans had been in cost, the center class received screwed, and large corporations and really rich Americans received a report tax break. And that’s not one thing our nation ought to endure once more.
NBC NEWS: Did you discover whenever you had been on the path this yr, and I do know you targeted on this quite a bit, proper, laying out how the laws in Washington that you simply guys had handed was impacting individuals’s counties straight, how the {dollars} had been being spent there. Did that resonate with voters? And had been voters actually conscious of how that laws was affecting them on the native degree?
CASEY: There’s no query that I did, and I’m certain others did. We most likely might have carried out extra of it. But it’s tough within the marketing campaign. It’s additionally tough when the funding shouldn’t be but manifest, which means that the bridge shouldn’t be but constructed. The water or sewer system that’s being changed or repaired shouldn’t be but accomplished. When high-speed web is deployed and children in colleges and rural communities and rural colleges start to profit from that, that connection shall be made extra simply.
But in some methods, we had been sort of up towards a timeframe that didn’t make a few of that work manifest. There’s solely a lot you are able to do to level to what’s going to come as opposed to what’s proper in entrance of individuals, proper already related to their group. So I feel over time that that story will proceed to be instructed, and I feel it’s vital for Democrats to proceed to level to the investments we made.
NBC NEWS: When you concentrate on the advertisements that had been in your race and in different individuals’s races, I imply, the airwaves had been blanketed with advertisements on transgender points in your race. It was on the radio, it was on TV. What sort of impression did you suppose that had? And how ought to Democrats communicate on these points going ahead?
CASEY: Well, I’m undecided. I actually don’t know. I simply haven’t seen any evaluation of the impression of 1 situation or one advert or a sequence of advertisements. Maybe over time, we’ll have a greater sense of that.
But I feel, ultimately, most of those races do come all the way down to primary points just like the financial system, and when you’re in a debate the place they imagine that change is important on the financial system, that’s a tough hill to run up. And I feel that was true in most races, regardless that we might level to the kid tax credit score in 2021 as actually possibly probably the greatest middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts for individuals not fairly within the center class, and that put extra {dollars} in individuals’s pockets. The assist we supplied on baby care helped as effectively.
The assist we had been offering on a complete host of fronts for households indicated that we knew that prices had been excessive, we knew that they had been struggling. We had been attempting to assist them. And I feel the arguments that I made and different Democrats made on company greed, I feel, broke by means of.
But I feel typically when the opposite aspect is making a change argument, they usually’re making it on the financial system, change usually prevails.
NBC NEWS: When you’re fascinated about what the subsequent 4 years are going to appear like beneath a Trump presidency, what do you see?
CASEY: Well, I’m involved about numerous main points which are vital to households, beginning with what I discussed earlier, the tax invoice. I fear that Republicans with a House majority, Senate majority and a president will do what they did final time in 2017, which is ram by means of a tax invoice that can profit probably the most rich.
And on the time, President Trump was very clear about that. He instructed very rich individuals at Mar-a-Lago, “I simply gave you an enormous tax break.” And he did. It was simply an unlimited tax break for people and for companies.
And what that continued and exacerbated was an issue that’s been with us because the Reagan period in 1981. I imply actually since that yr when he took workplace all over the start of President Biden’s time period, you had massive companies and really rich Americans win each tax battle. The solely tax battle they actually misplaced was once we handed the [American Rescue Plan], the place we mentioned we’re going to speculate quite a bit in a toddler tax credit score. And huge companies and really rich Americans are getting nothing, and that’s what ought to occur within the subsequent tax invoice they’ve had.
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And I’m afraid that what the Republicans need in 2025 is to proceed that, in order that middle-class household in Pennsylvania goes to get a pair hundred and the one that’s within the high 1% will get not simply tens of 1000’s however $50,000, $60,000, when the center class is getting within the a whole lot of {dollars}. That is freeway theft. That is unjust. It results in divisions in our society. It crowds out funding we’ve to make in our kids, investments we’ve to make in job creation and financial progress, and it’s mistaken. And that’s one of many issues I fear about probably the most.
On the worldwide entrance, clearly, I’m very involved about what the subsequent administration may do with regard to Ukraine and pulling assist for Ukraine and permitting Vladimir Putin to do just about no matter he desires. That could be a foul day, not only for Ukraine, clearly, however it could be a foul day for our nationwide safety.
NBC NEWS: When you look again in your profession, what accomplishments are you most pleased with? And then what’s subsequent for you?
CASEY: I discussed just a few of those overarching items of laws that I performed a job in passing, a part of a staff that did it, whether or not it was the Affordable Care Act or the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure invoice, the Inflation Reduction Act, which allowed us to make investments to fight local weather change, but additionally to cap the price of prescribed drugs and achieve this many different issues.
But I feel in a person sense, laws that I launched myself and labored with a Republican to go over time, definitely the ABLE Act, which allowed households to avoid wasting for a incapacity similar to for faculty in a tax-advantaged method; the Campus SaVE Act, which pressured schools and universities to do extra to guard ladies on school campuses from sexual assault; the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which allowed staff, pregnant ladies on the job, to have extra protections than they’d previous to that.
The investments we made in infrastructure throughout the state and roads and bridges and water methods and high-speed web and a lot else. The tax credit score for vitality communities, these former coal communities that now would be the topic of funding due to a tax credit score that I made a part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
In my time within the Senate, I used to be in a position to work with three completely different senators, two Republicans, one Democrat, to substantiate 51 federal judges, most of these being district court docket judges who will serve for all times. In reality, I’m in the midst of a vote proper now that simply began for the final Pennsylvania decide that I’ll play a job in confirming.
In phrases of what’s subsequent, I feel the quick reply is, I don’t know, however I do know I’ve to get a job. But I hope I can mix each a job that gives revenue — as a result of I don’t have a belief fund, I would like revenue — but additionally permits me to proceed to work on points that relate to youngsters, points that relate to seniors, individuals with disabilities, probably the most susceptible. So I’m searching for these alternatives, and we’ll see what occurs.