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Bob Casey concedes Pennsylvania Senate race to Dave McCormick
Incumbent Sen. Bob Casey on Thursday conceded in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania to Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
In an email from his campaign, Casey, a Democrat, said he called McCormick to congratulate him on his win in the race.
“As the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last,” the email said in part.
Casey acknowledged that the race was one of the closest in the state’s history and the ongoing legal battles over vote counting.
“And we stood up against efforts to silence and disenfranchise voters in every corner of the Commonwealth. Thanks to our work in the courts, nearly a thousand eligible voters in Philadelphia will have their votes counted, despite efforts to throw them out,” he said in the email.
McCormick followed up with a statement thanking Casey.
“Senator Bob Casey dedicated his career to bettering our commonwealth. Dina and I want to extend our sincere gratitude to Senator Casey, Terese, and their family for their decades of service, hard work, and personal sacrifice,” he said in an email from his campaign.
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A recount for the race is currently ongoing because the unofficial vote tally was within a 0.5% margin, which triggers an automatic recount. Results of the recount are expected to be shared by the state on Wednesday.
This is the fourth time the state has conducted a recount in an election since 2004. None of those times did the recount change the outcome.
McCormick gave a victory speech earlier this month after the Associated Press projected him winning the race. CBS News has not projected a winner in the race. He addressed a lawsuit his campaign filed challenging provisional ballots in Philadelphia that are still being counted. The state Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that provisional ballots are a valid way to correct mistakes on mail-in ballots that have errors on them such as no signature or no secrecy envelope.
Sen. John Fetterman, who also represents the Keystone State, said in a statement that Casey’s legacy “is a better Pennsylvania.”
Casey, a Scranton native, served three terms in the U.S. Senate. He was previously state auditor general and treasurer.
McCormick, born in Washington, Pennsylvania, and raised in Bloomsburg, was CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. He sat on former President Donald Trump’s Defense Advisory Board and served in top positions under President George W. Bush.
A coalition of conservation groups and Native American tribal citizens on Friday called on President Joe Biden to designate nearly 140,000 acres of rugged, scenic Badlands as North Dakota’s first national monument, a proposal several tribal nations say would preserve the area’s indigenous and cultural heritage.
The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument would encompass 11 noncontiguous, newly designated units totaling 139,729 acres in the Little Missouri National Grassland. The proposed units would hug the popular recreation trail of the same name and neighbor Theodore Roosevelt National Park, named for the 26th president who ranched and roamed in the Badlands as a young man in the 1880s.
“When you tell the story of landscape, you have to tell the story of people,” said Michael Barthelemy, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and director of Native American studies at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. “You have to tell the story of the people that first inhabited those places and the symbiotic relationship between the people and the landscape, how the people worked to shape the land and how the land worked to shape the people.”
The U.S. Forest Service would manage the proposed monument. The National Park Service oversees many national monuments, which are similar to national parks and usually designated by the president to protect the landscape’s features.
Supporters have traveled twice to Washington to meet with White House, Interior Department, Forest Service and Department of Agriculture officials. But the effort faces an uphill battle with less than two months remaining in Biden’s term and potential headwinds in President-elect Trump’s incoming administration.
If unsuccessful, the group would turn to the Trump administration “because we believe this is a good idea regardless of who’s president,” Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said.
Dozens if not hundreds of oil and natural gas wells dot the landscape where the proposed monument would span, according to the supporters’ map. But the proposed units have no oil and gas leases, private inholdings or surface occupancy, and no grazing leases would be removed, said North Dakota Wildlife Federation Executive Director John Bradley.
The proposal is supported by the MHA Nation, the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe through council resolutions.
If created, the monument would help tribal citizens stay connected to their identity, said Democratic state Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, an MHA Nation enrolled member.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service. In a written statement, Burgum said: “North Dakota is proof that we can protect our precious parks, cultural heritage and natural resources AND responsibly develop our vast energy resources.”
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven’s office said Friday was the first they had heard of the proposal, “but any effort that would make it harder for ranchers to operate and that could restrict multiple use, including energy development, is going to raise concerns with Senator Hoeven.”
A city in New Mexico has reached a $20 million settlement with the family of a woman who was shot and killed by a police officer now charged with second-degree murder.
Teresa Gomez, 45, was fatally shot in October 2023 shortly after a Las Cruces police officer on a bicycle approached her while she sat in a parked car with another person, authorities said. Body camera video shows the officer shot Gomez three times as she tried to drive away.
The officer, identified by the city as Felipe Hernandez, was charged in January and fired months later from the Las Cruces Police Department.
“This settlement should be understood as a statement of the City’s profound feeling of loss for the death of Gomez and of the City’s condolences to her family,” the city of Las Cruces said in a news release sent Friday.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. His trial is scheduled for June 2. The Associated Press sent an email Saturday seeking comment from Hernandez’s attorney.
A lawyer for the Gomez family said her relatives are grateful to the city “for recognizing the injustice of Teresa’s death,” the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
“They trust that the city will redouble efforts to make sure no other family suffers the tragedy of losing a loved one to abusive police conduct,” Shannon Kennedy said in a statement to the newspaper.
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