PA Senate Race recounts show Dave McCormick holding lead over Bob Casey with one week until deadline

(WHTM)— The recount for the 2024 Pennsylvania Senate race between Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick is underway, with McCormick maintaining a narrow lead among the counties that have finished their recounts.

Casey appears to have fallen short of McCormick in November's election by less than 0.5%, triggering a statewide recount. All 67 counties across the Commonwealth have started recounting votes and will continue to until the deadline next Tuesday.

There's a lot to do for local county election officials. In Cumberland County alone there are nearly 150,000 votes that need to be recounted. Dauphin County also had thousands of ballots to recount.

"We have a legal requirement to run all of the ballots through different scanners, high-speed scanners, than they were run through on election night," said Dauphin County Commissioner George Hartwick (D).

As of late Wednesday morning, McCormick is leading Casey in the state by 16,635 votes— a massive hurdle for Casey to clear on the recount.

"They didn't anticipate being here yet again, strapped to a recount," Hartwick said. "But the dedicated public servants are oftentimes the ones who are most criticized."

According to McCormick's team, a few counties have already completed their recounts, and out of over 50,000 votes, only six changed as a result of the recount.

Some are criticizing the delay, suggesting the recount is an attempt to steal an election, but the Department of State urges patience as nearly 7 million votes are recounted. But patience and partisanship do not mix. In a statement, the department re-iterated: "Elections professionals deserve to be given an appropriate amount of time to perform their work with integrity."

McCormick previously called for Casey to concede, but Casey's team says they are waiting for the votes to be counted.

The initial count showed the three third-party candidates with approximately 178,000 combined votes, which could have made a big difference in the race that's down to only a few thousand. However, the focus is on Casey-McCormick. While elections are partisan, counting votes is not, Hartwick insists. He says Casey is a fellow Democrat, a personal friend, and in his view has been a great public servant.

"But in no way will that impact how we count votes," Hartwick asserted. "The outcomes are going to be based upon the votes people cast. Not anybody affiliation or affection for any leader."