PHILADELPHIA — Six years ago, when Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) was running for his third term, California’s then-Sen. Kamala Harris came to West Philadelphia to help him court voters and do several fundraisers.
At the rally with Casey at her side, Harris pealed off a litany of issues that were important in her support for Casey, including racism, homophobia, distrust in government, sexism, immigration, mass incarceration, and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“We are better and bigger than those voices that are trying to sow hate and division among us,” Harris said unironically, right after sowing division in her speech.
Six years later, Casey is facing a very different dynamic with his former Senate colleague and current vice president, his party’s likely nominee for president. Casey has shared a deep personal relationship with President Joe Biden that dates back to the 1980s when his father, the late Bob Casey Sr., was this state’s governor. They grew up, albeit two decades apart, on the same North Washington Avenue, and Biden was quick to embrace Casey when he decided in 2005 to run for the Senate.
When Casey defeated Republican incumbent Rick Santorum the next year, Biden pressed Senate leadership to give Casey prestigious committee assignments, and in return, Casey was first out of the gate to endorse Biden for president in April 2019. Casey was with Biden on Election Day in Scranton in November 2020 when he convinced the soon-to-be president to stop by to say hello to his mother, Ellen. And Casey even stood by Biden after his disastrous debate last month.
Casey, like his party, has moved significantly more left of center since 2004 — an ideological place he never occupied before he won his Senate seat.
In fact, in 2004, after he won an overwhelming successful race for state treasurer, he told the local press that his party’s loss to incumbent Republican President George W. Bush was “a total repudiation of the national party; if our national campaign for president can’t attract rural Democrats, we’re never going to win,” he said.
Casey blamed the national party for allowing “the Hollywood crowd and the entertainment crowd to speak for Democrats in a hate speech way that really, really angers voters in both parties.”
In 2006, when running for Senate, he told the Harrisburg Patriot-News “All I know is I’ve been a pro-life Democrat for my whole public life, and I’ll always be.”
Twenty years later, Casey will inevitably have to answer to voters for several things in his bid for an unprecedented fourth term: How does he square his worldview with Harris’s on issues such as her pledge to end all fracking if she is elected president, her insistence she would not treat illegal entrants to this country as criminals, her belief that there are too many police officers on the streets, and her support of Biden’s economic policies that a majority of voters reject in polling?
Keystone College political science professor Jeff Brauer said there is a lot to untangle for Casey. Making that task more urgent, his opponent, Republican Army veteran Dave McCormick, has released a devastating ad pointing out those challenges.
“Critics of Vice President Harris's bid for the presidency will repeatedly point to her stances on critical issues such as energy and fracking, immigration and the border, and the economy and inflation,” Brauer said, adding, “These three issues are particularly important to Pennsylvania voters.”
Brauer explains Casey's support of Harris's candidacy will automatically put him on defense, “which is never a good place for a candidate to be. With Harris at the top of the ticket, it will make Casey's reelection more difficult, especially with voters outside of the metropolitan areas of the state.”
As for the questions that linger about how much Casey knew about Biden’s failing abilities, he will have to address that as well.
“Undoubtedly, there will be some Pennsylvania voters that will hold Sen. Casey to account for not identifying and sharing concerns of President Biden's aging issues,” Brauer said, adding there are already accusations directed at Harris for such.
“Given Casey's close, longtime relationship with Biden, Casey should expect similar accusations,” Brauer said. "Whether this issue becomes significant for his campaign remains to be seen.”
Brauer explained that voters have tended to see health issues of elected officials as private matters and usually don't expect elected officials to discuss others' health problems — unless they are very severe.
“It is unclear how much Casey, himself, has witnessed Biden's decline, and of course, Casey is not a medical doctor,” he said.
Philadelphia-based public affairs professional and Democrat Larry Ceisler said he is not convinced Casey will have trouble navigating the affiliation with Harris.
“For instance, on fracking, he has to say ‘no, we disagree,’” Ceisler said. “Now does he want people to vote for Kamala Harris and for him? Of course he does, but he's out for himself right now, so he'll just disagree with her on the issue. I don't think it's hard at all.”
As for the overall ideological fit of Harris in Pennsylvania, which tends to be more centrist, Ceisler said, “Tell you the truth, I don't know that much about her. All I do know is that I think she's better than Donald Trump, and that's what the choice is.”
Former state Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney said that while there will be plenty of narratives flying around that rejection of Harris would be because of race, people should remember “that Barack Obama won Pennsylvania, by a whopping 10 percentage points, including winning the rural counties of Elk, Cambria, Erie, Northampton, and Luzerne. And Hillary only lost the state by 41,000 votes.”
So the challenge for Casey and Harris rests mainly on connecting with voters not in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Muhlenberg College professor Chris Borick explained, “but in the margins in the smaller counties where the economy, the health of our energy industry, and the drug issues coming from the illegal border crossings,” remain the most important issues.
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