Democratic Sen. Bob Casey is one of the longest-serving senators in Pennsylvania’s history. But his run of electoral success ended last month when he narrowly lost to Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
Now, with just weeks remaining in his 18-year Senate career, Casey is reflecting on what went wrong for him and his party in what was the most consequential battleground state on the map. Casey was the only Democratic Senate candidate running in a presidential battleground who lost his race, falling to McCormick by roughly 15,200 votes as President-elect Donald Trump built a far more substantial victory in the Keystone State than he did in 2016.
Although Democrats were wrecked up and down the ballot in Pennsylvania, Casey doesn’t think the party needs to rip up its playbook. In fact, he thinks the factor that will help them the most is not having to face Trump on the ballot again.
“I think he’s about as strong a Republican candidate as they’ve had for president in my lifetime,” said Casey, who has served in statewide office for three decades and whose father served as a two-term governor of the state.
In an interview with NBC News, Casey discussed this year’s campaign, what’s next for him and his party, and the highlights of his Senate career.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
NBC NEWS: What went wrong in Pennsylvania this year?
CASEY: Well, I think we’ll know a lot more over time, but obviously, when President Trump was running as strong as he ran, that was going to, and it did, affect the results all across the ticket. So that’s certainly one, what I would call a substantial factor. …
Just in our race, I think the combined impact of the Trump wave, plus the $150 million spent against me by three super PACs, that had an impact, as well as the presidential race. It’s harder for me to analyze that because I just wasn’t paying as close attention to the data there. But obviously, for probably a variety of reasons, President Trump had his strongest performance ever in Pennsylvania of the three races and got about 50%.
NBC NEWS: And why do you think he did run as strong as he did in Pennsylvania? I mean, you have served there in elected office for many, many years, and have seen the state go through a number of political cycles. What do you think this time around made it so fertile for the former president?
CASEY: Well, I do think that the economy — and principally the driver of that was inflation, even though it had come down substantially, way down well before the election — there was a sense among folks that the economy was better under his administration. I don’t think that’s accurate, but that’s the perception that people had, and that if he was able to achieve that once, he could do it again. So that drove it.
And I think there’s no question about the fact that border security was a major issue, and we heard about that all the time. But I think if you had to boil it down to one or two words, it’d be “costs” or “cost of living.” And that’s why when I was making the argument on greedflation and shrinkflation, confronting the fact, the reality that large multinational corporations were jacking up their prices, people understood that I was fighting for them, and they understood that that was the reality in their lives, and they knew that corporate greed is one of the drivers of inflation.
So I think that’s one of the reasons why our race ended up as close as it did, because we were, I was, connecting on the economic issues, and that certainly made our prospects maybe a little better.
NBC NEWS: I know you and President Biden have a relationship that dates back many years. When you look at your race and just how close it was, do you think it would have made a difference if the president had either gotten out of the race earlier, had stepped aside to allow for a primary, or would it have been potentially decisive in your direction if he had stayed in and campaigned through the election with himself at the top of the ticket?
CASEY: I guess the short answer is I don’t know and nobody knows. It’s just all speculation. But look, I’ve had a great privilege to serve the people of our state for 28 years … and I was also fortunate to be in the Senate at moments where legislation not only passed, but legislation that I worked on was passing that will shape the lives of Americans, not just for years, but for generations.
NBC NEWS: Have you spoken with President Biden since the election? What thoughts did he share with you? And then is there anything that you’re really looking for him to accomplish before leaving office, as well as is there anything else that you would really like to accomplish before leaving office?
CASEY: Yes, I’ve spoken to [the president] but not at any length where we were analyzing the election. And I do think that it’ll take longer to fully analyze the election.
But number one, I hope he’ll continue as he has to get more and more resources to Ukraine, to fight against a murderous dictator, Vladimir Putin, and to fortify the Ukrainian military so they can continue to confront that enemy. And by the way, an enemy of the United States as well. I don’t know what the next administration will do, but I hope they don’t abandon the people of Ukraine and allow Vladimir Putin to take over a free people.
Obviously, on the domestic front, anything the president and his administration can do to get dollars out the door, whether it’s infrastructure dollars or other dollars for Pennsylvania, we’ll continue to work with them on that.
I’m still trying to get legislation passed too as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, potentially, but it’s an uphill climb to make some progress on so-called “outbound investment,” to be able to limit the investment that American corporations make in China that could under undermine our national security, is legislation that Sen. Cornyn from Texas and I worked on for years. We got 91 votes in the Senate a couple of years ago. … We want to actually pass it and have it enacted into law.
I’m also working to finally get into law — I mean, I may not get there — but we’re pushing very hard to pass legislation that would finally prevent companies from paying subminimum wages to people with disabilities. … I’ve had bipartisan legislation in the Senate to get that done. We’re hoping we can complete that by the end of the year.
NBC NEWS: I’m sure you’ve seen some folks that pay a lot attention to elections have been speculating whether Pennsylvania might be going the way of Ohio, where it was once a very competitive state, Democrats routinely won there, and now they’re essentially locked out, especially after Sen. Sherrod Brown was defeated last month. Do you see this year’s election as an aberration, a speed bump amid a long line of Democratic wins that have happened [in Pennsylvania] in recent years? Or are you concerned that this might be a harbinger of more Republican wins to come?
CASEY: I think it’s probably premature to make an assessment as to whether we’re going in one direction decidedly or the other. But I will say there were factors in this election that won’t be at play, or won’t be relevant in 2028. And one of them [is] Donald Trump will not be a candidate for president. … I think he’s about as strong a Republican candidate as they’ve had for president in my lifetime.
Nixon won by a landslide in 1972, Reagan had a landslide as well, but since those days, since at least since the early ’80s, they have not had a presidential candidate that ran as strongly in Pennsylvania as he did.
NBC NEWS: I don’t know how many conversations you’ve had with others in the party about how to move forward and what if anything needs to change, but what do you think the party needs to adapt or adjust to to be successful in the future?
CASEY: Part of it isn’t to rewrite the whole approach. Part of it is to do what I’ve been doing, and a lot of senators have done, governors have done, but do more of it, and that’s to go to every community, as I’ve been doing for years, to talk about not just local issues, but local priorities that you’re working on. And I was able to go to every community in the state, and I could point to specific investments in that county that occurred only just in the last four years. I didn’t even have to go back even further than four years.
So we have to continue to do more of that, to focus, to make the connection for constituents … between the work you’re doing in Washington and how you deliver for them.
I think we have to continue to speak directly to this issue of costs. That’s why this debate in 2025 about the tax bill will be important, because one way or the other families are going to lose or win in the tax bill. There’s not going to be much in between. Either working families, middle-class families, will get a significant tax break, or a significant — maybe even unprecedented — tax cut will go to big corporations, the billionaires and those who are the wealthiest in the country, because you can’t do both. It’s just impossible to do that.
And that will tell America a lot about who’s on their side, especially if you’re in the middle class or struggling to get to the middle class. And I think it’s going to be critically important for Democrats to lay out early the stakes of that debate and to tell people what’s at stake for them and their family, and then fight very hard to win that battle, so the middle class wins and big corporations and billionaires lose.
And I think it’s not something where you can try to split it down the middle. Because last time Republicans were in charge, the middle class got screwed, and big companies and very wealthy Americans got a record tax break. And that’s not something our country should endure again.
NBC NEWS: Did you find when you were on the trail this year, and I know you focused on this a lot, right, laying out how the legislation in Washington that you guys had passed was impacting people’s counties directly, how the dollars were being spent there. Did that resonate with voters? And were voters really aware of how that legislation was affecting them at the local level?
CASEY: There’s no question that I did, and I’m sure others did. We probably could have done more of it. But it’s difficult in the campaign. It’s also difficult when the investment is not yet manifest, meaning that the bridge is not yet built. The water or sewer system that’s being replaced or repaired is not yet completed. When high-speed internet is deployed and kids in schools and rural communities and rural schools begin to benefit from that, that connection will be made more easily.
But in some ways, we were kind of up against a time frame that didn’t make some of that work manifest. There’s only so much you can do to point to what will come as opposed to what is right in front of people, right already relevant to their community. So I think over time that that story will continue to be told, and I think it’s important for Democrats to continue to point to the investments we made.
NBC NEWS: When you think about the ads that were in your race and in other people’s races, I mean, the airwaves were blanketed with ads on transgender issues in your race. It was on the radio, it was on TV. What kind of impact did you think that had? And how should Democrats speak on these issues going forward?
CASEY: Well, I’m not sure. I really don’t know. I just haven’t seen any analysis of the impact of one issue or one ad or a series of ads. Maybe over time, we’ll have a better sense of that.
But I think, in the end, most of these races do come down to basic issues like the economy, and if you’re in a debate where they believe that change is necessary on the economy, that’s a difficult hill to run up. And I think that was true in most races, even though we could point to the child tax credit in 2021 as really maybe one of the best middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts for people not quite in the middle class, and that put more dollars in people’s pockets. The help we provided on child care helped as well.
The support we were providing on a whole host of fronts for families indicated that we knew that costs were high, we knew that they were struggling. We were trying to help them. And I think the arguments that I made and other Democrats made on corporate greed, I think, broke through.
But I think sometimes when the other side is making a change argument, and they’re making it on the economy, change often prevails.
NBC NEWS: When you’re thinking about what the next four years are going to look like under a Trump presidency, what do you see?
CASEY: Well, I’m concerned about a number of major issues that are important to families, starting with what I mentioned earlier, the tax bill. I worry that Republicans with a House majority, Senate majority and a president will do what they did last time in 2017, which is ram through a tax bill that will benefit the most wealthy.
And at the time, President Trump was very clear about that. He told very wealthy people at Mar-a-Lago, “I just gave you a huge tax break.” And he did. It was just an enormous tax break for individuals and for corporations.
And what that continued and exacerbated was a problem that’s been with us since the Reagan era in 1981. I mean literally since that year when he took office all the way through the beginning of President Biden’s term, you had large corporations and very wealthy Americans win every tax battle. The only tax battle they really lost was when we passed the [American Rescue Plan], where we said we’re going to invest a lot in a child tax credit. And big corporations and very wealthy Americans are getting nothing, and that’s what should happen in the next tax bill they’ve had. …
And I’m afraid that what the Republicans want in 2025 is to continue that, so that middle-class family in Pennsylvania is going to get a couple hundred and the person who’s in the top 1% will get not just tens of thousands but $50,000, $60,000, when the middle class is getting in the hundreds of dollars. That is highway robbery. That is unjust. It leads to divisions in our society. It crowds out investment we have to make in our children, investments we have to make in job creation and economic growth, and it’s wrong. And that’s one of the things I worry about the most.
On the international front, obviously, I’m very concerned about what the next administration might do with regard to Ukraine and pulling support for Ukraine and allowing Vladimir Putin to do pretty much whatever he wants. That would be a bad day, not just for Ukraine, obviously, but it would be a bad day for our national security.
NBC NEWS: When you look back on your career, what accomplishments are you most proud of? And then what’s next for you?
CASEY: I mentioned a few of these overarching pieces of legislation that I played a role in passing, part of a team that did it, whether it was the Affordable Care Act or the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, which allowed us to make investments to combat climate change, but also to cap the cost of prescription drugs and do so many other things.
But I think in an individual sense, legislation that I introduced myself and worked with a Republican to pass over time, certainly the ABLE Act, which allowed families to save for a disability just like for college in a tax-advantaged way; the Campus SaVE Act, which forced colleges and universities to do more to protect women on college campuses from sexual assault; the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which allowed workers, pregnant women on the job, to have more protections than they had prior to that.
The investments we made in infrastructure across the state and roads and bridges and water systems and high-speed internet and so much else. The tax credit for energy communities, these former coal communities that now will be the subject of investment because of a tax credit that I made part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
In my time in the Senate, I was able to work with three different senators, two Republicans, one Democrat, to confirm 51 federal judges, most of those being district court judges who will serve for life. In fact, I’m in the middle of a vote right now that just started for the last Pennsylvania judge that I’ll play a role in confirming.
In terms of what’s next, I think the short answer is, I don’t know, but I know I have to get a job. But I hope I can combine both a job that provides income — because I don’t have a trust fund, I need income — but also allows me to continue to work on issues that relate to children, issues that relate to seniors, people with disabilities, the most vulnerable. So I’m looking for those opportunities, and we’ll see what happens.
