HARRISBURG (TNS) — Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick came out swinging on a Harrisburg stage Thursday night, sparring over a bevy of policy disputes and hammering away at each other’s character in a tit-for-tat debate about a month before Pennsylvania voters could determine which party controls the Senate.

There were effectively only two friendly moments in the hour-long contest: the opening handshake and Casey briefly commending McCormick’s service as a veteran. Almost every other minute was spent one going after the another.

McCormick, a self-described “underdog” and “political outsider,” blasted Casey as a “weak, liberal career politician” sure to lurch the country leftward under a potential Kamala Harris administration. But the three-term Democratic incumbent Casey played plenty of offense, repeatedly jabbing McCormick’s judgment on investments in China and painting him as a Connecticut-tied former executive beholden to big corporations and billionaires.

In a contest that touched on the Middle East crisis, abortion, immigration, the economy, energy and much more, the pair’s contrasting styles were on full display for Keystone State viewers. A stone-faced Casey calmly maligned McCormick on almost every question, and the Republican often smirked and animatedly pointed at the senator across the stage during his own boisterous critiques.

“When you don’t have a record to run on, you attack your opponent,” said McCormick, and then immediately told voters to go to a new website called “Casey lies.”

A former George W. Bush administration official who narrowly lost a 2022 GOP Senate primary to celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, McCormick said the commonwealth and country are “in trouble.” And he blamed Casey and the Biden-Harris administration for “stupid” policies on energy, a border policy that’s helped spark an influx of violent criminals and fentanyl, and economic plans that have driven inflation and will amount to bogus price controls if Casey and Vice President Kamala Harris are elected.

“Let’s face it … you’re a liberal,” McCormick said, arguing Casey was no longer a moderate and had flip-flopped in recent years on abortion and fracking. “This is not the Bob Casey you elected for office.”

A poised Casey stoically cited his legislative track record fighting for children, seniors, veterans and Americans with disabilities.

“While I was doing that,” he said quietly and deliberately, “this guy was running the largest hedge fund in the world,” arguing that McCormick’s firm, Bridgewater Associates, boosted investments in China, including Chinese oil companies, Chinese weapons manufacturers and the largest producer of fentanyl in the country.

He added that McCormick has made at least $100,000 by investing in Rumble, a website he said “platforms hate, Holocaust denial and antisemitism.”

“All those investments hurt Pennsylvania and continue to hurt Pennsylvania,” said Casey. Even on the very first question — on Israel policy, with both strongly supporting the Jewish state — Casey said his opponent had a history of “[lifting] up our adversaries.”

Casey also chastised McCormick for not supporting a bipartisan border bill that would have added thousands of Border Patrol agents and technology to find more fentanyl in vehicles. Former President Donald Trump urged Republicans not to back the bill, in what Democrats describe as a political ploy.

McCormick fired back that the senator had a lot of “chutzpah” to say he’d been strong on border policy over the years, saying he’d supported sanctuary cities and arguing the state’s increase in fentanyl deaths was due in large part to “weak” border policies tied to President Joe Biden and Casey. He said the proposed bipartisan bill amounted to an “amnesty bill.”

Casey also said unlike McCormick, he’d push for middle class tax cuts instead of the Trump tax cuts that he argued mostly benefit corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

But McCormick, who said he’d continue the Trump tax cuts while also supporting cuts for the middle class and other pro-family benefits, described the senator as “anti-business and anti-success.”

McCormick defends his Pa. background

McCormick sought to end any doubts about his residency, noting he was born in Washington County, grew up in Bloomsburg, helped create 1,000 jobs in Pittsburgh after serving in the military, and “spent the majority of my life in Pennsylvania.”

“When I said I was living in Pennsylvania, I was,” he said, yet again accusing Casey of lying when the senator repeatedly referenced McCormick’s ties to and home in Connecticut.

McCormick threw his Trumpian nickname at the senator, saying “Punxsutawney Bob” was a “guy who keeps his head down, pops up for political benefit, and gets nothing done.”

“Where’s his legislation to get tough on China?” McCormick asked. “Oh, it just came up a couple months ago.”

In a heated exchange over U.S. Steel — whose potential sale to Japan-based Nippon Steel has sparked concerns over jobs and trade — McCormick went after Casey. He claimed the senator didn’t do enough to push back against Allegheny County officials who he said years ago blocked the company’s expansion in Pennsylvania over environmental concerns causing the company to invest in Alabama instead.

“If I were the senator from Pennsylvania, I would be standing on the desk of the people in Allegheny County, getting that great investment and those jobs here,” McCormick said. “This is the kind of failure of leadership that’s taking Pennsylvania in the wrong direction.”

Casey said dryly, “He was in Connecticut when that was going on,” adding that McCormick was “an expert on outsourcing.”

The high-stakes clash at a closed ABC27 studio marked the first of two scheduled debates in a tight race that’s unleashed near-record spending as the parties jostle over control of the U.S. Senate. The candidates haven’t yet agreed on a third debate.

Republicans have high hopes that McCormick can oust one of Pennsylvania’s best-known politicians, the son of a governor and a former state treasurer and auditor general who has won each of his Senate bids since 2006 by at least 9 percentage points.

If Casey loses, it could upend the Democrats’ one-seat majority in the Senate.

Trump and Harris, who have played outsized roles in the Senate race, remain effectively deadlocked in Pennsylvania, according to recent polls — which also show McCormick narrowing what had been a steady lead for Casey.