HuffPost: “The Wealthy Often Have Plentiful Baggage Opening Them Up to Democratic Attacks, Including on Their Out-Of-State Homes, Rich Friends and Yearslong Business Records”
PENNSYLVANIA — Connecticut mega-millionaire and hedge fund executive David McCormick’s massive fortune is dragging down his Senate candidacy, according to a new report from HuffPost. McCormick has a history of selling out Pennsylvanians to Saudi Arabia and China in order to enrich himself and his Wall Street friends at the expense of working families.
ICYMI: HuffPost: Senate Republicans have rich people problems
- David McCormick, the GOP candidate challenging Pennsylvania’s Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, was blunt when he spoke with students at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire last month.
- “I am spending half my time with donors,” McCormick told students at the Tuck School of Business, according to audio obtained by the progressive news site Heartland Signal, adding: “I’m everywhere across the country, mostly with really wealthy people.”
- McCormick himself, of course, is also one of those very wealthy people. Senate financial disclosures indicate McCormick, a former Bush administration official and CEO at Bridgewater Associates, and his wife Dina Powell, a Trump administration official who previously was a partner at Goldman Sachs, have a combined net worth of between $95 million and $196 million.
- …But the strategy, as Republican candidates are discovering, comes with real risks: The wealthy often have plentiful baggage opening them up to Democratic attacks, including on their out-of-state homes, rich friends and yearslong business records.
- In McCormick’s case, that has meant attacks on the $16 million mansion he rents in Connecticut; his financial ties to Saudi Arabia and China; and his history of outsourcing and laying off workers ― all part of an effort to paint him as an out-of-touch billionaire.
- …Casey and his allies have shown a particular interest in tying McCormick to the governments of China and Saudi Arabia, two authoritarian regimes McCormick did extensive business with while leading Bridgewater Associates, a massive asset management firm.
- “David McCormick’s history of selling out Pennsylvanians to boost his own bottom line has left him entangled with foreign governments like China and Saudi Arabia, and at the beck and call of his billionaire backers,” said TaNisha Cameron, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “His record of prioritizing the ultra-wealthy and big corporations at the expense of working families is a non-starter with Pennsylvania voters.”
- McCormick’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
###