Trump heads for campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where down-ballot drama awaits

Donald Trump returns to Pennsylvania for a campaign rally that will be notable for who won’t be there – the expected Republican nominee for Senate, Dave McCormick.

Days before his hush money trial begins in New York, former President Donald Trump returns Saturday to the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania for a campaign rally that will be notable for who won’t be there – the expected Republican nominee for Senate, Dave McCormick. Trump has been reluctant thus far to endorse McCormick, who is running unopposed in the GOP primary to take on Democratic incumbent Bob Casey in the critical Senate battleground. McCormick’s campaign told CNN the candidate has a previously scheduled family event, having made the commitment long before Trump announced his planned rally in Schnecksville in the Allentown suburbs. The former president has so far endorsed all candidates backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the major swing states, except in Pennsylvania and Nevada. (And while he has not yet formally backed a candidate in the Senate race in Nevada, he posted on social media Friday that Republican hopeful Sam Brown and the former president himself were the “Clear Choices of Nevada’s Republican Voters and Donors.” Trump’s resistance to formally wade into the Pennsylvania Senate race has confounded some Trump allies, especially given that the former hedge fund CEO faces no primary opponents in the April 23 GOP primary. One campaign adviser insisted to CNN, however, that while there wasn’t a jump to get behind McCormick, there wasn’t any dislike either: “We are going to eventually work with him, and we’re going to support him.” People close to the former president say the lack of an early endorsement is not entirely surprising: Trump and McCormick have a fraught history, dating back to McCormick’s failed 2022 primary bid for Pennsylvania’s other Senate seat against celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz.