Next fall’s Pennsylvania’s Senate race could determine which party controls that chamber.
Republican David McCormick — who narrowly lost to Dr. Mehmet Oz in a primary last year, then watched him lose to John Fetterman in the general election — is weighing a race against 3-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey.
David McCormick
McCormick — the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and an Under Secretary of the Treasury George W. Bush’a administration — is an attractive candidate.
But an AP story today suggests that the same issue that helped defeat Oz may dog him: residency.
Oz lived largely in New Jersey. And though McCormick owns a home in Pittsburgh, where he was born and raised, the AP says “a review of public records, real estate listings and footage from recent interviews indicates he still lives on Connecticut’s ‘Gold Coast,’ one of the densest concentrations of wealth in America.
Specifically, Westport.
McCormick “rents a $16 million mansion” here, according to AP. It “features a 1,500-bottle wine cellar, an elevator and a ‘private waterfront resort’ overlooking Long Island Sound.”
The West Point graduate and 1991 Gulf War veteran’s spokeswoman “would not say how much of his time he spends at his Connecticut mansion, which also boasts a spa, pool and heated pavilion nestled in an area that real estate listings describe as a ‘summer playground of America’s wealthiest families,'” AP reports.
She said “he maintains a residence in Connecticut as his daughters finish high school,” but that for the last 10 years he has owned a working farm in his hometown of Bloomsburg.
“Dave has called Pennsylvania home for 30 years and served our country outside of Pennsylvania for an additional 13,” she added.
Last year, AP says, McCormick and his wife Dina Powell McCormick, a former Goldman Sachs executive, had a net worth of “between $95.7 million and at least $196.7 million.” They also owned homes in Dallas and Colorado.
He has not received a tax exemption for his $2.8 million Pittsburgh home, which is reserved for a primary place of residence, AP says.
Though he said “This is my home. This is our home” after losing to Oz by just over 900 votes in last year’s primary, AP says that “his children continued to attend a $53,000-a-year Connecticut private school.” One is still there.
Official documents list his Westport home as his address, as does a $5,000 campaign contribution made this spring.
The story about McCormick’s residency follows reports last week that Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville lives almost full time in a $3 million home in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
(Click here for the full AP story. Hat tip: Allan Siegert)