With the 2024 election cycle heating up, battleground states across America begin to draw attention from the masses, but perhaps none as notorious as Pennsylvania. The Keystone State finds itself in the spotlight again as a must-win state for both Democrats and Republicans. But this year, we have a double feature to watch. Indeed, not only is the race for the presidency at the top of the ballot, but we have a critically important Senate race as well, the first one taking place in a presidential year since 2016.

In years where those two races are on the same ballot, unusual and secondary dynamics can add themselves into the equation, even more so when a battleground state is involved. With a state as elastic and home to a wide variety of different demographics as Pennsylvania, differences can manifest all the way from the local level to the top. The considerations of heavy black wards in Philadelphia are worlds away from the Hispanic enclaves of Allentown and the steelworkers who linger around Pittsburgh.

Many a candidate have tried to differ themselves from who they share their tickets with in order to achieve their objectives. One good example of this is how in 2016, Pat Toomey, the former Republican senator from this state, outran Trump by roughly half a percentage point. He achieved this by saturating southeastern Pennsylvania with ads framing himself as for reasonable gun control and other attempts at appearing moderate.

It is that difference in which the 2024 race finds itself. Chatter is rapidly increasing about how candidates for each party will be performing in Pennsylvania this year and how much they’ll be over or under-running other people on the ticket. With that in mind, let’s go over a quick recap of the nominees for POTUS and Senate in the state this election cycle.

At this point, it should come as no surprise that the 2024 election is looking to be a 2020 rematch of Biden v. Trump, absent some sort of ahistorical event. Both candidates are on track to be their parties’ respective nominees and will be heading into the general election with various flaws to their names. There is no need to rehash what’s already been said and what the chances are for those two as Election Day draws nearer, but rather how that race is going to unfold in comparison to the other one.

On the other side of the coin in the US Senate race, we have a very different story. Bob Casey Jr. is seeking re-election for a fourth term on the Democratic side while hedge fund manager and former Bridgewater CEO Dave McCormick is seeking that office on the Republican side of the aisle. At this point in time, it’s reasonably certain that those candidates will be their parties’ nominees. Casey needs no explanation as the incumbent and McCormick has been able to clear the field by virtue of no other major Republican candidate wanting to run, assisted by the help of the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) and cold, hard, cash.

All in all, those four candidates set up an interesting dynamic. For POTUS, you have two people who are relatively unpopular, albeit in different and/or fixable ways. For Senate, you have a battle-tested incumbent versus a very wealthy individual who has yet to win an election. Words, money, and ads will be exchanged in increasing frequency and vigor, but at the end of the day, two elected officials will be emerging out of this battleground in November.

From the onset of how 2024 was shaping up, one thing has always been clear - regardless of the outcome of either race, it is highly likely, if not certain, that Bob Casey will be outrunning Biden. There are many reasons for this, but let’s first look at what happened the last time the former ran on the same ballot as a presidential race (2012). In that year, Barack Obama won Pennsylvania by roughly 52% to Mitt Romney’s 46.6%, a win of 5.4 points. Casey, on the other hand, dispatched his challenger, Tom Smith, with even more ease 53.7% to 44.6%, a win of 9.1 points. Not only is outrunning Obama by almost double the winning margin a remarkable feat in itself, but historically, this would be Casey’s second time being on a ticket with Biden. That brings us to the main question - what’s the delta between Casey and Biden going to look like? And why is Casey going to do better?

One thing you should know about Pennsylvania politics - Bob Casey Jr. is legendary in the state. As the son of former governor Bob Casey Sr. - yes, the same one from Planned Parenthood v. Casey - the younger Casey’s first foray into state politics was running for Auditor General in 1996 before eventually deciding to run for US Senate in 2006 and destroying the incumbent senator that year, Rick Santorum, by roughly 17.5 points. Thus marked the start of a long career of titanic electoral victories and crushing opponents in landslides year after year. In fact, save for a primary loss for governor in 2002 and the 2012 Senate race, Casey has always won against his opponents by at least double digits.

Much has been discussed about Casey’s secret sauce, and while it is true that he usually runs in years that are good for Democrats it’s a lot more than that. As someone who has excellent favorables and is low-key, Casey is formidable in the sense that he is extremely difficult for any opponent to attack. Additionally, his talents at making sure the positions he takes are relatively in-line with the median Pennsylvania voter is one reason why his favorables are so good in the first place. Years after years of surveys has always shown negative perceptions or strong disapprovals for him to be in the 20-30% range, an enviable position for many a politician. In short, Casey has done a good job of making the array of issues he could be bombarded on as small as possible. It pays to be likeable, offer excellent constituent services, and not go out of your way to antagonize large groups of people. It’s why he routinely wins by at least a few more points than a generic candidate of his party would in correlating environments.

Against that onslaught, who do Republicans have to offer this year? Enter none other than Dave McCormick, who lost the 2022 GOP primary for the other Pennsylvania Senate seat to Mehmet Oz. He’s back again primarily for two reasons - one, nobody else on the GOP side wants to run against Bob Casey, and second, he has a lot of money to do so. With over $50 million in net worth and deep connections with large networks of wealthy donors, McCormick and subsequently the NRSC are hoping that his ability to self-fund will give him a shot at beating Casey. In their minds, Pennsylvania will be the fourth best pickup after West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio. Let's dispel their thinking - it is not. The POTUS race is one story, but the difference between that and Senate are worlds apart.

The Great Delta

Perhaps the most obvious point indicating a delta between the POTUS and PA SEN races is the initial polling we’re getting in terms of favorabilties and head-to-head match-ups for Casey and Biden. One example is Commonwealth’s recent Q4 2023 poll showing Biden’s favorables to be 39-60 while Casey’s is 48-36. Then you have other firms like Quinnipaic showing Biden up by 3 against Trump 49-46 while Casey is up by 10 against McCormick 53-43.

There’s a lot more where that came from, but you get the gist of it. Save for an outlier or two, the expected delta is already making itself clear in numbers this far out. And for what it’s worth, those numbers will change eventually since polling isn’t that predictive at this point in an election year. But even still, patterns are easily observed to those who understand Pennsylvania’s electoral history and what the state is willing to do.

The real story, however, revolves around what’s driving those differentials. Many people know that Trump is toxic in the suburbs, so wouldn’t a Republican like McCormick who has a lot of money and is branding himself as a more acceptable alternative to those suburban voters do better? Not exactly.

No matter how you cut it, incumbency is a powerful thing and not only is Casey a strong one, he’s leveraged that incumbency very well. And that belies the fact that McCormick has a lot of weaknesses of his own, notwithstanding the fact that he’s still working on repairing his damaged favorables from the 2022 bruising primary and isn’t exactly the top pick for the GOP base. Many of his stances are, frankly, off-putting to them and in combination with Casey’s still-lingering strength in many rural parts of Pennsylvania, makes it extremely likely that he will run behind Trump in those areas. And in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, the suburban parts of the state are extremely skeptical of trusting any Republican who looks poised to gain margins with those types of voters, evidenced by Mehmet Oz’s and Carolyn Carluccio’s bruising blowout losses back-to-back.

In the face of all that, the quandary for McCormick is that as the current math stands, Trump would have to win Pennsylvania by a few points, likely by 3-4, for him to have a realistic shot of beating Casey - far from a guarantee even if things got that far. And unfortunately for him, even though Trump definitely has a shot of eeking out a win in the state, it would be a narrow one at best. And it’s all thanks to southeastern Pennsylvania giving Democrats increasing margins year after year. Compromised of Philadelphia, Chester, Montgomery, Delaware, and Bucks counties, hostility to Republicans around those parts is pretty high.

And for what it’s worth, McCormick hasn’t done any favors to help endear himself to most of the state. Although Trump is well-known to have a laundry list of sins and other traits undesirable to the electorate, part of the reason McCormick went down in 2022 is because of the skeletons in his closet in a manner similar to Oz’s. Like the latter, he is not a longtime Pennsylvania resident - although he was born in the state, he moved away in adulthood and spent most of his life in Connecticut. He only moved back to Pennsylvania once it was clear he would run for Senate. Carpetbaggers are extremely disliked and treated with derision in the state, a phenomenon that Trump and candidates on the presidential level don’t have to contend with much. And that’s without getting into the attention he’s received over China, controversial comments about teachers’ unions, comments about his wealth, taking private jets to meet donors, and more.

Frankly, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. It would take another article altogether to break down the electoral flaws between each candidate, but the short version is this - the ratio of attackable quantities between Casey and McCormick is far, far greater than between Biden and Trump. No wonder we see such a sizable delta between those races.

In the end, we still have a long way to go until November. Regardless, there will be a delta and the developing dynamics that determine how wide it’ll be rests on how the next few months develop. There are national issues like the economy, immigration, and more to contend with. There’s also individual data points like McCormick’s personal wealth helping him have the smallest financial disparity out of all of Casey’s opponents, the tendency of certain groups to ticket-split, and what have you.

To the larger point, the expectation is that you can expect a narrower range in the presidential race this year and subsequently on the Senate side as well. 2024 is very different from 2012 and partisanship will be higher. For instance, it's highly doubtful that Casey, no matter how good of a campaign he runs, will be able to win by double digits again. Theoretically, he could, but it would take a pretty stunning collapse in GOP turnout for that to happen - dubious in a presidential year. However, nothing can be ruled out, the same way it can't be ruled out that Trump could win again. Time will tell. But for many reasons, as of the time of this writing, Biden is pegged as a narrow favorite to win Pennsylvania and Casey a very high one. It would not surprising to see a delta of 5-6 points between the two, perhaps more depending on what happens. Think the disparity between Fetterman and Shapiro in 2022, but smaller.

Regardless, too much is still unknown. Could be a small disparity, could be a big one. But as mentioned earlier, patterns will make themselves clear as time goes on. Math is going to math, particularly important in a state like Pennsylvania.

*Joshua Smithley works in the aviation industry and has a passion for Pennsylvania politics while specializing in data analysis and electoral breakdowns for the state