SCRANTON, Pennsylvania — Hometown son Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA) arrived early Monday morning with Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti for a meet and greet after a roundtable discussion on women’s rights in nearby Luzerne County.
Casey, the incumbent senator who won three statewide races beginning in 1996 before winning and holding his seat for three consecutive terms, is the son of former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey. Bob Casey Jr. grew up on North Washington Avenue, the same street President Joe Biden grew up on — something the reserved Democrat, as well as Biden, loves to reference.
Bob Casey Jr. and Biden have been intrinsically tied to each other, not just by geography and Democratic politics, but personally.
" Oh, I’m proud of him. I literally lived … my family was raised, and I was raised six blocks from the Caseys. And it’s kind of funny. His dad’s as much older than me as I am Bobby … and we’re kind of straddling," Biden said in an interview in January 2007, when Bob Casey Jr. was sworn in. "I joke when I’m in Scranton, which is the reason I moved out of Green Ridge in Scranton, is I knew only one Catholic could make it, and it wasn’t going to be me.”
In December 2020, during an Election Day swing he made with the president through their shared hometown, Bob Casey Jr. said he asked then-candidate Biden if Biden could wave to his mother, Ellen Casey, as they drove by her house on the way to Bob Casey Jr.'s old house, which Biden happily agreed to do.
Bob Casey Jr. explained that Biden didn’t just wave but got out of the car to chat with his mother from the sidewalk. He then turned to the senator and said, “God only created two perfect women. My mother and Ellen Casey.”
Since Biden’s debate performance last Thursday against Trump, both Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) have robustly admitted two things: Biden had a bad debate, and Biden should remain the Democrat nominee. There was no hesitation by Shapiro and Fetterman on Biden's performance and on hesitation their support for him. The latter offered a more cheeky response than Shapiro’s.
The only statewide elected Democrat who has not offered an assessment of the debate, and interestingly not offered support for Biden either, has been Bob Casey Jr.
The day after the debate, with both Shapiro and Fetterman on the record, Bob Casey Jr.'s campaign was contacted with questions about whether the senator had said anything about Biden’s debate.
A campaign official provided a quote from Bob Casey Jr. in response.
"I’m fighting for Pennsylvania against an opponent who sells out working people to enrich himself, invested in Chinese military companies, and cheered when Roe V. Wade was overturned," the senator's quote read. "Pennsylvanians deserve someone fighting for working families, not for billionaires."
Although Bob Casey Jr.'s statement appeared to be about his opponent, Republican Dave McCormick, and not about Biden and the debate, his campaign stood firm that this was indeed the senator's post-debate statement.
J.D. Prose, a journalist at PennLive, reported he, too, received a statement from Bob Casey Jr. attacking McCormick rather than addressing the debate. Between social media posts and emails from Bob Casey Jr.'s campaign, nothing was found to address the senator's assessment of the president's debate performance.
The senator's campaign account on X contains posts discussing public transportation as well as posts between Bob Casey Jr. and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) discussing which side of the Delaware River has better pizza. More posts show the senator's visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania, to address retiree pensions and a fundraising pitch, a post about the anniversary of the Stonewall riots , and a whimsical post about Pride.
Paul Sracic, a Youngstown State University political science professor, said one would expect leaders such as Bob Casey Jr. to come out as surrogates for the president.
"There is an obvious reason, however, why Case may be keeping silent,” said Sracic. "We are seeing in polling the resurrection of split-ticket voting, something that once was common but has become rare. Right now, Casey does better than Biden, far outpolling him," he said.
Sracic said the senator, similar to most Democrats, is in a difficult spot.
"Casey may need Trump voters to cross over in November and does not want to offend them by defending the indefensible," he said.
On Monday morning, Axios reported a massive political, public relations, and personal campaign is underway to reject calls for Biden to drop his reelection race and rally Democrats to move on from public debate about the president's age and future.
Sracic did address the fact that Bob Casey Jr., throughout his campaign, has repeatedly said (pre-debate) that Biden is up for the job now and if he were reelected. McCormick, over the weekend, released an ad called "Bob Casey Knew ," asserting that the senator, as a close confidant and friend of Biden, hid the president's weakening abilities and knew all along Biden was indeed not up for the job.
“There is more than a chance he could lose voters because they are going to think he lied to them,” Sracic said.
Sracic said Bob Casey Jr. went into debate night with polling showing swing voters embracing Democratic incumbents in Senate races while rejecting Biden.
“In a sense, it’s personal,” he said. "Part of this is part of the slow sorting process that is going on as the parties realign. Trump changed the Republican Party, stealing working-class voters from the Democrats while losing some suburban, particularly female, voters," he said.
To date, the Senate elections in Pennsylvania and Ohio have been symptomatic of this overall change, and Bob Casey Jr. has benefited from his father’s social conservatism and legacy with Pennsylvania working-class voters.
On the other hand, remember, turnout in presidential years is very different from midterm elections. Some Trump voters, in particular, only seem to turn out when Trump is on the ballot. Sracic said Bob Casey Jr. needs Trump voters, particularly those who are more anti-Biden than pro-Trump, to split their tickets in November.
"Many of these anti-Biden but not really pro-Trump voters think Biden is not up to the job. The debate on Thursday confirmed this," he said.
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Sracic said Casey has to be careful not to sugarcoat Biden's debate performance to swing voters when they know what they saw.
"This could push them into McCormick camp," he said.
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