Senator Casey Will Not Concede, Denying Called Race
When the race is called, tradition says you give your concession speech and accept defeat.
Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) is refusing to do that even though every major news outlet has called the race, so I believe that would make him an election denier.
Calling the Race
At last report, Casey was down by more than 30,000 votes, with about 90,000 votes left to be counted. Seems like that deficit could still be made up, right?
Well, that is not actually the case because the outstanding counties are GOP strongholds and evenly split counties, so there is not nearly enough support for Casey to come back, hence while the race has already been called.
When AP Called the race, it reported, “Republican David McCormick cut Democratic Sen. Bob Casey’s leads in Philadelphia and its populous suburbs and built leads in the more GOP-leaning parts of the state, foreclosing the incumbent’s pathway to victory when The Associated Press called the race.
“McCormick was leading by more than 30,000 votes when AP called the race at 4:09 p.m., and though there were an estimated 91,000 votes still outstanding, there were not enough in areas supporting Casey for him to make up the difference.”
Election Deniers
News outlets do not take these calls lightly and generally err on the side of caution before calling a race, which is why you see different news organizations calling races at different times.
They all have their brain trusts that monitor these races, and they rarely, if ever, get them wrong.
Yet, Pennsylvania Senators Casey and Fetterman are telling everyone to ride this out. Casey openly refused to concede, posting, “I have dedicated my life to making sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard, whether on the floor of the Senate or in a free and fair election. It has been made clear there are more than 100,000 votes still to be counted. Pennsylvania is where our democratic process was born.
“We must allow that process to play out and ensure that every vote that is eligible to be counted will be counted. That is what Pennsylvania deserves.”
Fetterman then joined in, stating, “We still have tens of thousands of votes to be counted across the Commonwealth.” He added that the Associated Press “shouldn’t make a call in this race until every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted.”
Side note... several days before the election Fetterman accused Donald Trump of being an election denier, a point that was widely made in the comment section of his post on X.
Big Wins
Another big win for the GOP was having Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) booted from his seat in a campaign that came off the rails about two months ago and never recovered, even though Tester was once a double-digit favorite to win that race.
Currently, the GOP has 53 seats, with 45 for the Democrats, which includes two non-party seats that will caucus with the Democrats. Two races remain undeclared. Democrats are, however, leading in both of those races, with Gallego leading Lake in Arizona, and Rosen leading Brown in Nevada.