L: Philadelphia police R: Dave McCormick (Spencer Platt; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
A Pennsylvania police union that backed Sen. Bob Casey and other Democrats in past elections has endorsed Casey’s Republican challenger, Dave McCormick.
The Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCormick over Casey this week, following a recent meeting with both candidates. The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association also endorsed McCormick, citing his service as a combat veteran and as a national security adviser to George W. Bush.
It’s a pick-up of sorts for McCormick, who trails Casey narrowly in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. The unions have endorsed Democratic candidates for Pennsylvania races in recent years. The 40,000-member Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police backed Casey in 2012 and endorsed Democrats Josh Shapiro and Tom Wolf in the state’s past two gubernatorial races. The union did not endorse a Senate candidate in 2018, the last time Casey ran for reelection.
The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, which has 4,300 members, backed both Shapiro and Wolf in their gubernatorial races.
Police groups have soured on Casey in recent years amid his calls to address "systematic racism in policing." The head of the union’s Delaware County chapter blasted Casey earlier this year after the Democrat held a campaign event with Indivisible Philadelphia, which has called to defund police departments. In 2020, the group called for "fewer officers on the street terrorizing Black and Brown residents" and a reduction in Philadelphia's police budget. The organization pledged it "won't stop until they #DefundThePolice."
Though Casey has said he opposes efforts to defund police, he has touted organizations like Black Lives Matter, which spearheads the anti-cop movement. Casey praised professional sports leagues in August 2020 for boycotting events over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Blake, who is black, was shot by Kenosha, Wis., police after he pulled a knife during his arrest in a sexual assault case.
Both unions called on Casey earlier this year to oppose President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Adeel Mangi, over his board position with a nonprofit that has praised numerous convicted cop killers as "freedom fighters."
Casey has stayed silent on Mangi, who served on the advisory board of the Alliance of Families for Justice. The group called for the release of six black nationalists serving time for murdering police officers. A founding board member of the alliance is Kathy Boudin, a former member of the Weather Underground terrorist group who served 23 years in prison for her role in the murder of two New York state troopers during a robbery attempt.
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