Tight U.S. Senate race may trigger automatic recount as David McCormick looks to oust Sen. Bob Casey

By Benjamin Kail / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PHILADELPHIA — The razor-thin margin in Republican David McCormick‘s lead over longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey may trigger an automatic recount, leaving a pivotal U.S. Senate race in doubt a while longer even as the week shapes up to be a historic win for the GOP.

Pennsylvania’s heated Senate race was too close to call overnight, even though Keystone State voters have already helped send Donald Trump back to the White House as part of a resounding Electoral College victory, while Trump-backed candidates in other states have helped the GOP seal control of the Senate in 2025.

Throughout much of Election Day and Wednesday, the results suggested Mr. McCormick, a veteran and former hedge fund CEO, may have successfully ridden the wave of top-of-the-ticket support across Pennsylvania and the other two “Blue Wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, which Trump flipped back to red after President Joe Biden won them for Democrats in 2020.

But Mr. Casey — who has won each of his Senate races by at least 9 percentage points since 2006 — closed in on his opponent as more results trickled in from Philadelphia and elsewhere across the state.

By 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Mr. McCormick led by about 31,000 votes — 3,325,203 to 3,293,772, or 49% to 48.5% with all but 2% of the Keystone State’s total vote counted. If that margin holds in the contest, an automatic recount would be triggered based on guidelines from Pennsylvania’s State Department.

Such a recount occurs when a candidate is “defeated by one-half of one percent or less of the votes cast for the office,” according to the guidelines.

Automatic recounts must start "no later than" the third Wednesday after Election Day. They must be completed by noon on the next Tuesday. Candidates cannot request recounts in the state.

Republicans took to social media Wednesday urging the race to be called for Mr. McCormick.

“CNN’s Erin Burnett says what we already know: @DaveMcCormickPA will be the next Senator from the GREAT Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!,” wrote the Pennsylvanians for McCormick account. “CALL. THE. RACE.” Ms. Burnett had said that Mr. McCormick was winning the race so far.

But Mr. Casey isn’t likely to concede just yet. His campaign said Wednesday morning that the three-term incumbent Democrat remains confident, with many votes left to be counted in Democratic strongholds.

“There are more votes that need to be counted in areas like Philadelphia, and it’s important that every legal ballot will be counted,” Maddy McDaniel, a spokesperson for the campaign, said in a statement. “When that happens, we are confident the Senator will be re-elected.”

The Associated Press, which has not called the race, shows tens of thousands of votes still being counted across several counties, particularly Cambria and Centre counties.

Mark Harris, a McCormick campaign adviser, posted on X Wednesday that the race had been over “since 2 a.m. or so,” arguing that there were not as many votes left to count in Philadelphia as Mr. Casey would need to eclipse the Republican’s lead.

“Philadelphia has now all but exhausted its ballots,” he added. “The largest chunk of ballots remaining is Cambria County Election Day. We believe this batch will net [Mr. McCormick] at least 20k votes. With Philly now all but completed the race is over.”

If Mr. Harris is correct about a large number of votes coming in for Mr. McCormick the final results may not trigger the recount.

The tight race sparked hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on ads and was one of several seats Democrats had hoped to hold in an effort to keep their slim majority in the Senate.

But that majority has already been throttled by GOP wins elsewhere on Tuesday, meaning Republicans will have at least 52 members in the chamber next year, with a handful of races yet to be called.