What Kamala Harris could learn from Bob Casey about winning Pennsylvania

John Fetterman has a nickname for Bob Casey: “I call him ‘Mild Thing’.”

Of course, compared to the tattooed, cargo shorts-wearing, profanity-spewing wildcat Fetterman, pretty much everyone else in Congress is tame. What’s important is that Fetterman takes the description as an emphatic compliment. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m the embarrassing brother,” Fetterman, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, tells me, referring to the senior senator from Pennsylvania. “He’s an incredibly accomplished senator and just so down to earth. He’s doing his job, and that’s refreshing in modern politics. He’s not the guy to make red districts angry.”

That’s actually a rare trait in these hyperpolarized times and one of the main reasons why Casey, a Democrat, maintains a narrow lead over his Republican challenger in his Senate race. David McCormick. The two will face off in their first debate Thursday evening in Harrisburg. Casey sounds excited. Well, calmly cheered. “I think I have a long record of fighting for workers and children, for seniors, for people with disabilities and for our veterans,” Casey tells me. “And while I was doing all the work, [my opponent] made money by investing in China.”

If this political issue doesn’t work out for Casey, he has the kind of resonant baritone voice that would give him a successful career as a late-night DJ on an FM jazz station. He laughs easily and extensively when I relay Fetterman’s “mild thing” assessment. “I haven’t heard that before,” he says. “That’s pretty good. In this turbulent political world, I accept that. Most voters don’t just want a fight. They want us to get something done.”

Casey, 64, has a track record of providing funding for child care programs and small businesses, among other things. He has also demonstrated an impressive ability to adapt his viewpoints on controversial topics. Previously, Casey was, although not exclusively, pro-gun and pro-life, advocating for gun control after the Sandy Hook massacre and the codification of national abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s overthrow Roe v. Wade. “It sounds less offensive when Republicans say, ‘Oh, let the states decide,'” Casey says. “Well, the reality is that a ban is not a thing of the future. There are bans in 14 or 15 states. It’s also the reality of what’s happening because of these bans: A woman in Florida was bleeding so badly she had to be put on a ventilator. I think it’s hard to underestimate the damage one ban after another can do.”

That Casey was able to navigate such inflammatory issues and remain a sensible moderate in style and substance was crucial to his political longevity. Perhaps even more important was his tireless attention to local issues in Pennsylvania. In his current campaign, that has meant repeatedly returning to pocket arguments and making it clear that he and the Democrats are on the side of the middle class, while McCormick – a multimillionaire – and the Republicans are looking out for the rich. “Senator Casey has done a great job of inoculating himself before election season, talking about ‘greed inflation,’ talking about taking on those who are gouging consumers,” he says Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist based in southwestern Pennsylvania.

In the presidential election, Pennsylvania is a must-win state Kamala Harris, and she clearly pays attention to what works for Casey. Some of his personal strengths — such as familiarity with Pennsylvania voters that comes from his twice-governor father — don’t transfer. But the recipe for success across the state also applies to Democrats in Pennsylvania Joe Biden In 2020, the task was to keep loss margins low in rural counties while increasing scores in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh — and, crucially, winning over enough suburban and exurban voters outside the two major cities. This is where Casey’s strategy becomes applicable to Harris’ campaign. “One of Casey’s central arguments is that corporations are currently doing good business and ripping off workers,” says a National Democratic Party strategist. “That resonates greatly and has allowed Casey to attract this very broad coalition of voters that includes many Republicans.”