In Pennsylvania’s Competitive Senate Race, Fracking Takes Center Stage

Vice President Kamala Harris has been the official Democratic nominee for president for less than a week, but her presence is already changing the dynamic in critical races down the ballot. On July 26, Pennsylvania’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Dave McCormick, visited a fracking rig in Warren County. One reason for his trip? To link Harris with his opponent in the race, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. 

“The fracking industry is a huge driver of economic growth. It could be a lot more,” McCormick says in a video shot at the site, gesturing at the equipment behind him. “Kamala Harris and Bob Casey want to ban fracking in Pennsylvania.”

While Harris said she was in favor of a ban on fracking during the 2020 Democratic primary, she has since reversed course, and Casey has never supported a fracking ban, despite years of research showing the process can be harmful to public health, the climate and the environment. 

McCormick’s ad signals a shift in strategy in one of the most competitive and expensive Senate races in the country. It’s also suggestive of the important role that energy, environmental and climate issues could play in Pennsylvania this fall, not only in that race but in the presidential contest as well.  

Like Dr. Mehmet Oz and former president Donald Trump before him, McCormick has seized on fracking in an attempt to paint Democrats in Pennsylvania as anti-industry, anti-national security and out of step with public opinion. Harris’ old comments “give Republicans an opening to claim that she’s extreme on this issue,” said Christopher Borick, director of Muhlenberg College’s Institute of Public Opinion, which frequently surveys Pennsylvania voters.

Since Harris’ announcement, McCormick has talked to Fox News about Casey’s support for regulations on the oil and gas industry, tweeted old news clips of Harris criticizing fracking and accused Casey of being “too weak to fight to unleash our commonwealth’s natural resources.” 

In some ways, McCormick’s renewed emphasis on fracking highlights the difficulty of his current position. He is running against a well-financed and well-liked three-term incumbent, and Pennsylvania’s political landscape means that he needs to appeal to the right-wing Republican base without losing more moderate independents. 

After a failed primary bid for the Senate seat eventually won by John Fetterman in 2022, McCormick’s success in 2024 rests in part on whether he can convincingly navigate this shaky middle ground. 

For Casey, Harris’ entry into the race presents challenges—it’s unknown if Harris will have the same rapport with older suburban moderates that President Joe Biden did. It also offers potential opportunities to help him win over younger voters who don’t agree with his stances on fracking, pipelines and liquified natural gas exports but who may not know that he earned a lifetime score of 94 percent from the League of Conservation Voters and played a role in passing the Inflation Reduction Act. In April, the LCV called Casey a “climate champion.”

“Senator Casey has cruised to victory in his three previous elections,” Borick said. “That said, Dave McCormick is the strongest candidate he has faced.” 

As the summer winds down, the race is close; polls show Casey with a narrow lead, an anomaly for a politician who won his previous election with a double-digit margin. Because of that competitiveness, “issues that otherwise may not have been as significant to Casey in past years are going to rise in salience,” Borick said. “I truly see that environmental and particularly energy issues will be a significant part of this campaign.”

The ‘All of the Above’ Approach to Energy

When you ask environmentalists about McCormick, one of the first things they bring up is his wife, Dina Powell McCormick, who sits on ExxonMobil’s board of directors. 

“McCormick has bragged about his ties to ExxonMobil,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, the communications director for the youth-led and climate-focused Sunrise Movement. “He has not hidden the fact that if he is elected, he will do the bidding of oil and gas CEOs and lobbyists instead of actually fighting for what working-class Pennsylvanians need.” 

Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters, said McCormick’s pro-fossil fuel platform stands in “stark contrast” to Casey’s “incredible leadership” on climate and clean energy. “We know McCormick has ties to Exxon,” she said. “He has not been shy about being clear that he wants more fracked gas.”

Despite a vow that “we must drill more,” McCormick’s energy platform also calls for “making America the leader in clean energy technology.” He is supportive of expanding nuclear power and of technologies like carbon capture and storage to “lower or offset emissions from power plants and manufacturing.”

Unlike many of his Republican peers, McCormick is not a climate change denier. “While some still dispute it, the science is clear that climate change, as defined by rising global temperatures, is happening, and there’s also no doubt that human activity is one of many contributing factors,” he said in a speech in March. “But the key question is how to manage that reality. Our leaders must mitigate the risk of climate change through adaptation and energy policies that do not impose significant damage on our society, our economy and our security.”

Climate activists in Pennsylvania say that position is inconsistent with McCormick’s desire to “unleash oil and gas production here at home.” 

“McCormick has been pretty clear that he’s not particularly interested in taking the climate crisis very seriously,” said Ilyas Khan, hub coordinator for Sunrise Pittsburgh. “His campaign rhetoric doesn’t make any sense on the environmental front.” 

David Masur, executive director at PennEnvironment, an environmental research and advocacy organization, said McCormick’s energy platform was like trying to “have your cake and eat it too when it comes to climate change.” 

“It’d be like saying you can be in the best shape of your life and never leave the front of your TV and eat as many boxes of Twinkies as you want,” he said. “It just doesn’t work out.”

McCormick’s campaign says his “all of the above energy goals” are a contrast to Casey’s, though Casey has advocated for a similar approach, and both he and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro have used the same phrasing when they talk about their energy policies. 

“It is increasingly difficult to differentiate between Democrats’ and Republicans’ positions on energy and climate change, and that’s certainly true of Casey and McCormick,” said Karen Feridun, co-founder of the grassroots environmental group Better Path Coalition. “Although McCormick would have us believe otherwise, Casey openly supports natural gas development.” 

Neither candidate agreed to an interview for this story, nor did their campaigns offer representatives who could speak on their behalf about environmental policy. When asked for comment, Casey’s campaign team pointed to a recent interview the senator did for Erie News Now. “If any administration proposes a fracking ban, not only will I vote against it, but I will lead the effort to make sure a ban won’t get started, let alone enacted into law,” Casey said. 

“It is increasingly difficult to differentiate between Democrats’ and Republicans’ positions on energy and climate change, and that’s certainly true of Casey and McCormick.”

In the same interview, McCormick accused Biden, Harris and Casey of making it “more difficult to drill and put in place new pipelines that can get our wonderful and clean natural gas” to the people of Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

In a statement, Stephanie Catarino Wissman, the executive director of American Petroleum Institute Pennsylvania, declined to endorse either man but said “candidates running for office should embrace Pennsylvania’s leadership role in energy and promote this advantage at both the state and federal levels.” 

That, in fact, sounds very much like both McCormick’s and Casey’s energy platforms. Compare McCormick’s “America—led by Pennsylvania—must become the world’s most energy dominant nation,” to Casey’s call to “maintain” Pennsylvania’s status as a “national leader in energy production.” 

The oil and gas industry appears among McCormick’s top campaign donors list, but Casey received $42,738 from the industry in the 2024 cycle and more than $290,000 over the course of his career, according to OpenSecrets. 

“A lot of environmentalists and young people are looking at this race and drawing a real blank, because neither candidate has proven, in my opinion, that they’re willing to commit to fighting for the health and well-being of the southwestern PA communities affected by pollution and climate change,” Khan said. “Young people are now in this moment of incredible crisis, of asking, ‘Is my future just destined to be [decided by] old white men who all say the same thing in different ways?’”

The son of a Pennsylvania governor and the grandson of a Pennsylvania coal miner, Casey’s Keystone state bona fides have never been in doubt. (In 2022 and 2024, Democrats pointed to McCormick’s longtime residency in Connecticut as proof he is a “carpetbagger.”) Casey’s climate bona fides are more complicated. First elected to the Senate in 2006, Casey’s positioning on climate change has shifted over time. “When Senator Casey was first elected, he was more reticent about wading into some of these climate fights or voting with the environmental community to tackle climate change,” Masur said.“I think that’s really evolved a lot.” 

While the environment is not and likely never will be Casey’s top issue because of the economic and political power of the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania, he has become a “big advocate” for the Inflation Reduction Act, renewable energy and electric vehicles, Masur said. Casey worked to secure funding for cleaning up Pennsylvania’s abandoned coal mines, co-sponsored a bill to support federal efforts to locate and plug abandoned oil and gas wells and recently touted his role in getting the IRA passed and securing $396 million for industrial decarbonization projects in Pennsylvania.

Casey’s website quotes Pennsylvania’s constitutional green amendment, which protects the right to clean air and pure water, and he acknowledges the “devastating impact” the climate crisis is already having on public health, agriculture, the economy and the environment. “We need to invest in meaningful climate action now, and we can do so while also creating good jobs and providing robust assistance for training and skill development,” it reads. 

In 2021, Casey was one of a handful of Democrats who voted to block a potential ban on fracking, and in February, he and Fetterman came out against Biden’s pause on pending approvals for liquified natural gas exports, saying they had “concerns” that the pause could affect the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania. Casey also supports the two hydrogen hubs proposed in Pennsylvania, and he recently urged the Biden administration to “ensure” that the federal hydrogen tax credit is available even for hydrogen produced using fracked natural gas, which environmentalists oppose. 

In another recent interview, the candidates explained their views on fracking. McCormick said fracking has a “tiny impact on the environment” and is “incredibly clean.” He also advocated for permitting reform to make drilling easier for fracking companies. 

“I think people who say you have to choose between jobs and a clean environment, or between economic opportunity and a better future for a state like ours, are one of two things,” Casey said while reiterating his support for fracking. “They either don’t know what they are talking about, or they are purposefully lying about it.”

Even as McCormick zeroes in on fracking on the campaign trail, Casey is looking to other issues to make his case to voters. At a rally to introduce Harris’ new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and to launch the Harris-Walz campaign in Philadelphia this week, Casey’s speech focused on reproductive rights, inflation and the fentanyl crisis and McCormick’s background as a Connecticut-based hedge fund executive. None of the rally’s eight speakers mentioned climate change.

The Fracking Problem

For all the political jockeying over it, the reality of fracking as an electoral issue in purple Pennsylvania is more complex than McCormick’s talking points—or Democratic fears about Harris’ “fracking problem”—make it seem. Casey’s support for what he calls “responsible fracking” that is “regulated and closely monitored” is broadly popular in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania’s natural gas production reached historic highs under Biden and two Democratic governors. It’s also unclear that fracking is a winning issue for Republicans; both Oz and Trump lost the state while using “drill, baby, drill” as an unofficial slogan.

“There’s nuanced public opinion on the matter in the state,” said Borick, the Institute of Public Opinion director. “It’s not a slam dunk that you go all in, and it’s going to win you a lot of swing voters.” For most voters in Pennsylvania, the economy is far more important than the environment or climate. But fracking on its own is “not an issue that will carry Pennsylvania,” he said. Rather, McCormick’s fracking tactics are part of a larger effort to smear Harris, and by extension Casey, as “radical.” 

The strategy is aimed at scaring off the moderate suburban voters who made Biden’s 2020 win possible in Pennsylvania. Democrats’ affection for Gritty aside, Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania was not only powered by Philadelphia but by his success with voters living in the city’s collar counties. In 2020, Trump did better in heavily Democratic Philadelphia than in 2016, winning almost 17.9 percent of the vote, compared to 15.5 percent four years earlier; Biden’s improvement on Hillary Clinton’s margins in the suburbs was key. “That’s where the difference was last time,” Borick said. This is likely the reason Harris was seriously considering the middle-of-the-road Shapiro as a running mate, even if environmentalists weren’t enthusiastic about that idea.

With Harris’ appeal to the Philadelphia region’s suburbanites still a question mark, she may need young voters and voters of color more than Biden did to win Pennsylvania. Voters who are part of those constituencies say Democrats shouldn’t take their support for granted. Khan said down-ballot Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania who are banking on the support of voters of color need to genuinely listen to those voters’ concerns. “You can’t keep putting your faith in us if you’re not going to give us anything back,” they said. 

Another organizer for the Sunrise Movement in Pennsylvania, Erica Brown, who was arrested in a protest outside Biden’s campaign headquarters in February, said young voters’ awareness of the stakes of the election doesn’t mean their votes should be counted as a given. She criticized moderate Democrats who tell young people to get in line behind the party’s candidates and not to push back on the many policy positions they are not happy with. 

“That’s not how change happens,” she said. 

For climate-conscious voters, Casey’s and Harris’ “fracking problem” is their support for it. While they see Harris’ candidacy as an exciting development, they are concerned about her change of heart on fracking. 

“With Harris, some optimism has returned, especially among young people,” Khan said, adding that Harris stands a better chance in Pennsylvania with young voters than Biden ever did. But “Harris’ position [on fracking] rightly worries a lot of us.” 

Young voters will also be watching to see how Harris’ new running mate affects her climate platform. In a statement released on August 6, Sunrise praised Walz’s environmental record and called him “the fighter young people need.”

Khan said all of the focus on the presidential election and the lack of ideal choices in the Senate race should not “obscure the fact that this Senate race does have massive implications” for Pennsylvania. That’s especially true for southwestern Pennsylvania, where they live and where the oil and gas industry is concentrated. 

Brown also stressed the importance of the election for the climate and the environment, and she said she recognizes the strategic need for Democrats to control the White House and Congress in order to pass meaningful legislation on climate change. “There’s no future under Republicans at this point,” she said.

“I have only been politically conscious for a couple of election cycles, and I’m already tired of people saying this is the most important election ever. But I think it was genuinely true in 2020, and I would say it’s true now,” said Brown, who was too young to vote in 2020. “We needed to get off of fossil fuels before I was born, right?”