With Pennsylvania votes still being counted early Wednesday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick showed up at his campaign party at a Pittsburgh hotel at 1 a.m. to tell supporters that his campaign believes he is on the path to victory .

But McCormick stopped short of declaring himself the winner of his campaign to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey as he spoke at the Fairmont Hotel downtown.

McCormick led the vote count Wednesday morning by about 52,000 votes, or less than 1%, but that was too close for the Associated Press to declare him the winner at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

In his speech early Wednesday morning, McCormick emphasized the hard work he said he put in to get to such a close result.

“It was a great honor to campaign throughout Pennsylvania – 450 visits to every town and city,” he said.

During those visits, he said, the people he met gave him and his wife, Dina Powell, hope.

“You gave us faith. You have given us the courage to represent and serve the great people of our Commonwealth,” he said. “It will be the honor of a lifetime.”

On Wednesday morning, Casey's campaign spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel claimed she saw a path to victory. “In areas like Philadelphia, more votes need to be counted, and it is important that every legal ballot is counted,” McDaniel said. “If that happens, we are confident the senator will be re-elected.”

Republicans have already won the Senate majority by at least 52 seats and won seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana. That means President-elect Donald Trump will have an easier time making his Cabinet appointments and judicial appointments, including any Supreme Court vacancies.

But the outcome of the Pennsylvania Senate race will also have implications in 2026, when Democrats will try to win back the Senate — and which will be much more difficult if Casey loses. The Senate races in Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan are also too close to decide as of Wednesday morning, but Democrats had a slim lead in those states. In addition to McCormick, Republican Sam Brown of Nevada has a small lead in this Senate race.

A few hours before McCormick's speech, Casey had ended his party in Scranton without a word. Paige Cognetti, a Casey ally and mayor of Scranton – the city where Casey was born, grew up and launched his political career – spoke on his behalf and said Casey still believes he has a path to victory. But just before midnight, she asked partygoers to go home in the hope that a result would become clear on Wednesday.

“Tonight is a long night and I think we have another long day ahead of us tomorrow,” she said. “We are confident that after all the votes are counted, Senator Casey will be back in DC to fight for us.”

Because of its key role in selecting judges, the issue of abortion featured prominently in the election campaign following the Dobbs decision, which struck down abortion rights in 2022. Economy and immigration were also important — but were sometimes overshadowed by the candidates' personal attacks on each other's records.

McCormick tried to portray Casey as an inactive politician who had served 18 years in the Senate and won few legislative victories. Casey attacked McCormick for running a wealthy hedge fund that sometimes invested in China and for giving a misleading picture of his career as CEO of a Pittsburgh company.

Casey has been leading in the polls since the start of the race, but in the final two months of the election, many polls were within the margin of error, and Cook Political Report rated the race as a misstep. While some polls showed McCormick leading heading into the home stretch, dozens of polls showed Casey still holding a small lead.

In the early days of the race, Casey attacked McCormick for spending most of his time with his family in Connecticut. But as McCormick had more time to explain his childhood and work experience in Pennsylvania, the arguments in the race shifted to specific issues.

Casey's campaign emphasized issues on which McCormick's campaign attacked him. Casey ran ads claiming he was tough on the border and wanted to pass a bipartisan border security agreement, and even pictured himself next to the border wall. Casey also spoke for months about his plans to target corporations with price gouging to reduce inflation.

Abortion was the main issue Casey McCormick attacked. Through the end of the campaign — including an appearance in Wilkinsburg on Friday — Casey appeared with abortion groups and advocates who said abortion rights were at stake.

“It's not a theory or a constitutional debate about the intricacies of the law,” Casey said Friday as he stood next to two women who cited personal experiences and said proposed Republican abortion laws would leave them vulnerable. “It’s about people, about women, who live in a different world than we did just a few years ago.”

Oliver Morrison

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McCormick said his background as a CEO and military veteran gave him particular insight into business and foreign policy. In western Pennsylvania, McCormick stressed the need to support the natural gas industry and criticized the Biden administration for even considering future restrictions on the industry. And McCormick said threats from China and Russia meant the country had to massively increase its military spending.

Neither Casey nor McCormick, with some notable exceptions, have highlighted major disagreements with their party. McCormick supports Ukraine's war effort in a way that contrasts with Trump's statements about war with Russia. Casey has at times called on the Biden administration to provide greater support to the local natural gas industry, particularly with regard to exporting natural gas and supporting hydrogen energy that can be produced with local natural gas.

Still, McCormick made a last-minute appeal to Republicans uncomfortable with Donald Trump by taking on former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley last week. Haley and Trump did not campaign together after a bitter primary campaign. Haley said support for Trump is key for McCormick.

“Dave McCormack can’t win if we don’t elect Donald Trump at the top of the ticket,” Haley said. “You may find Trump loud-mouthed, but I tell you, he understands that we have to turn this economy around.”

The candidates fought two debates in which they often attacked each other rather than presenting their own legislative visions. They rarely deviated from the guidelines they used in their advertisements and speeches.

Although Casey's campaign spent more money on advertising than McCormick's campaign, the Republican challenger was bolstered by outside money and outspent Casey's total by about $5 million in a race that spent more than $350 million on advertising alone.

Casey has not had to win a Democratic primary in recent years and has been able to take a more progressive stance on issues like abortion without causing major conflict within his own party. McCormick lost a close primary to Oz in 2022 and had to distance himself from that race on some of his statements on abortion.

Other Senate races likely to determine control of the Senate are taking place in Montana, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada and Michigan. Republicans are all but certain to take retiring U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin's seat in West Virginia, but Democrats are holding out some hope that they may be able to pick up a seat in Texas or Nebraska, where independents are running a strong race .

The Associated Press contributed to this report.