Pennsylvania Still Counting 100,000 Ballots as Casey Stands Firm in Senate Race
‘We urge patience as election workers continue to do this important work,’ Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said.
The Associated Press and other outlets earlier on Thursday projected McCormick as the winner over Casey.
The news agency said it called the race because there were not enough outstanding votes from areas that Casey was winning for him to end up as the victor.
With so many ballots left to count, Casey said that he would not yet concede to his opponent.
McCormick after the projected win said he was looking forward to representing Pennsylvania in the Senate.
If the projected win holds, Republicans would have at least 53 seats in the upper chamber in the next Congress after spending four years in the minority.
Races in Nevada and Arizona have yet to be called.
Casey, 64, defeated incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) in 2006 and won reelection in 2012 and 2018. This year was the first time he was on the same ballot as President-elect Donald Trump, for whom a majority of Pennsylvanians voted.
McCormick, 59, tried for Pennsylvania’s other Senate seat in 2022 but lost in the GOP primary to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who went on to lose to Democrat John Fetterman.
“We still have tens of thousands of votes to be counted across the Commonwealth,” he said.
Under Pennsylvania law, an automatic recount will take place if the final margin is less than or equal to 0.5 percent of the total number of votes cast.