Wrestle mania: McCormick launches first campaign ad in Pa. Senate race featuring high school sports success

What questions do you have about the 2024 elections? What major issues do you want candidates to address? Let us know.

David McCormick has dropped his first video ad in his bid against sitting Senator Bob Casey. Channeling his inner Al Bundy (the protagonist shoe salesman in Married… With Children), the former hedge fund manager reminisces about his high school sports days in his new spot.

“Pennsylvania wrestling taught me to do the hard thing: Hard work. Hard choices,” McCormick tells the camera as cut-away shots of newspaper clippings of his high school exploits glide by.

Taking a thinly veiled aim at the incumbent—who is running for a fourth term—McCormick continues, “Career politicians don’t do the hard work. They’re selfish and soft.”

McCormick is looking to get an early head start in the campaign after suffering a hard and close defeat in his 2022 race for the open Senate seat that John Fetterman now holds. In that race, he lost to the eventual Republican nominee, Mehmet Oz.

McCormick has the money to go big now, having already raised $5.4 million last quarter and contributing another $1 million in personal funds.

He must also overcome Casey’s incumbent advantage, though the race appears to be tightening. A poll released by The Hill and Emerson University this week puts Casey at a six-point lead, but two polls in January gave Casey double-digit leads.

The race is expected to be one of the nation’s most expensive and closely watched. Democrats have a difficult 2024 Senate map and only hold a one-seat majority in the upper chamber.