Jews were key to Dave McCormick’s win in Pa.

On Thursday night, Sen. Bob Casey finally did what he should have done the day after the election: He called Dave McCormick and conceded. 

It was an upset Casey didn’t expect and struggled to accept; the race was a Rocky-like story for Pennsylvania Republicans.

How did McCormick pull it off? In a year where moral clarity in the fight against antisemitism and outspoken support of Israel was too often viewed as controversial, McCormick’s bold approach was critical.

Throughout that fall, Dave confronted antisemitism in Pennsylvania with moral clarity and strong leadership.  

In a scene reminiscent of 1930s Germany, in early December, a group of pro-Hamas protesters stood outside a Philadelphia restaurant owned by an Israeli-American and chanted “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”

Dave immediately responded on X: “This ‘protest’ is despicable — antisemitism, plain and simple. I call on everyone who cares about our Jewish community to support Goldie’s. There are more supporters who care than antisemites who hate.”

That evening, Dave and his team invited a group of local Jewish leaders to dine with him the next day at the restaurant.

Notably, he did not make a press event or photo-op out of the visit. He simply wanted to support the restaurant and Jewish community.

A few days later, when the University of Pennsylvania’s president could not clearly condemn calls for the genocide of Jews, Casey was silent. 

But Dave immediately called for her resignation, the first statewide leader to do so.  

The now-senator-elect, his wife Dina and their senior team also visited Israel personally in January to bear witness to the horrors, meet with hostage families and show solidarity with the Israeli people. 

That show of support, less than 90 days after Oct. 7, meant a great deal to everyone who loves Israel and supports the US-Israel relationship. 

While Dave provided clear policy positions and strong leadership, Casey equivocated, even endorsing Rep. Summer Lee, a Pittsburgh-area representative and a strong supporter of the far-left “Squad.”

Throughout the campaign, McCormick called out Casey over that endorsement, given her routine antisemitic rhetoric.

Casey simply hoped the issue would go away, just as he did with the Penn president.

His equivocation bolstered McCormick’s argument that Casey was weak on fighting antisemitism. 

This same dynamic played out in how the two men confronted the campus encampments that became a fixture in late spring. McCormick visited the encampments at Penn and University of Pittsburgh and spoke with Jewish students. Casey did not.

Throughout the fall, prominent Jews volunteered their time and energy to McCormick’s race because they knew him to be a sincere friend of the Jewish people and state of Israel. Ari Fleischer, Matt Brooks, Dan Senor and Ben Shapiro held events across the state that each drew hundreds of attendees.

In October, McCormick attended events that commemorated the victims of Oct. 7. Once again, he chose not to speak at these events or stand on a dais with other leaders. Instead, he simply stood among the crowd. 

Dave understands, intuitively, that sometimes leadership means standing with a crowd, listening and bearing witness. 

On Election Day, Pennsylvanians spoke with a loud voice and voted Republican up and down the ballot.  A national poll from NORC, the AP and Fox News showed that Jewish voters shifted to the Republican Party and that President-elect Donald Trump’s share of the Jewish vote was the highest since 1988.

In Pennsylvania, a Honan Group exit poll showed Trump’s share of the Jewish vote at 41%, vs. 30% nationally in 2020.

With approximately 300,000 Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, the 11-percentage-point shift represents an additional 33,000 votes.

Many of those voters also likely backed McCormick, giving him his winning margin (as of Monday, McCormick led by more than 16,000 votes).

True, other issues — the economy, the border, crime — played a role in Pennsylvania, as elsewhere. And Kamala Harris’ snub of Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro sure didn’t help Dems with Jewish voters.

But McCormick’s focus on combating antisemitism and supporting the US-Israel relationship clearly swung Jewish and pro-Israel voters to his side.

Other pols should heed the lesson.

Jeff Bartos is a Republican strategist from Pennsylvania.