McCormick says he’ll term-limit himself if elected. Will it matter in his U.S. Senate race?

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), GOP candidate David McCormick and former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) visited Geno's in Philadelphia April 3, 2024 (Capital-Star photo by John Cole)

Last week on the campaign trail, Republican U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick pledged to a Lancaster County crowd that if elected, he would limit himself to two six-year terms. 

“We need to have term limits,” McCormick said to applause Tuesday while making his pitch to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, who is seeking a fourth term. “So I’m here to say today that if elected, that I’ll limit myself to two terms.”

“Somebody said to me, ‘You’ll just be getting seniority, then you can just make a difference,’” McCormick added. “I said, ‘Oh my God, if you have to go to Washington for 12 years to get seniority to make a difference, the system’s screwed up.’”

He reemphasized his commitment to term limits in an op-ed on Real Clear Pennsylvania on Wednesday, arguing that “the Founders never imagined that Congress would become an institution filled with career politicians who stay on well past retirement age.” 

McCormick’s pledge isn’t new to this office. In October 2017, then-GOP Congressman Lou Barletta said if elected to the Senate, he would “serve no more than two terms” and “will support a constitutional amendment imposing term limits.” Barletta lost to Casey in the midterms the next year by 13 percentage points. 

Surveys have shown Americans favor term limits for Congress, and some political observers say such a promise might pique the interest of voters at a time when public opinion of Washington, DC “institutions” is low, particularly if candidates present themselves as a change from the status quo.

“I think it can be a smart play by challenger candidates because it puts the focus on the fact that their opponent, in this case, Bob Casey Jr., has been in office for so long,” GOP strategist Chris Nichols told the Capital-Star. “Three statewide terms as row officer here and now ending three terms in the Senate. So that’s a lot of time.”

“It’s a good way to highlight the ‘It’s time for a change’ theme,” he added.

But Democratic strategist Brit Crampsie, who described McCormick’s pledge as a “desperation” move, argued term limits already exist. “It’s called elections,’’ she said.

“They’re not really able to connect on any policy,” she said of McCormick’s campaign. “His policy positions now look a little different than they did two years ago where he was unable to build the momentum he even needed to get through the primary.”

She said thinks McCormick’s campaign is “looking for their niche” and “don’t think they found it” with the term-limit pledge.

“Senator Casey will fight for Pennsylvania’s working families as long as they’ll trust him to represent them,” Maddy McDaniel, spokesperson for the Casey campaign said in an email to the Capital-Star. “Meanwhile, David McCormick refuses to answer for his extreme views on abortion, his record of selling out American workers, and his lies about where he lives and who he is.”

A Pew Research report released in September 2023 found 87% of adults favor limiting terms of members of Congress. The poll showed slightly more Republicans favor the restriction than Democrats. 

Political science professor Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, told the Capital-Star that “all of the institutions,” including the presidency, the courts, and Congress, have low approval ratings. Pledging support for term limits gives a candidate the ability to put distance between them and the incumbent and it’s “a nice political move without a lot of cost to the candidate.”

McCormick’s campaign confirmed to the Capital-Star that he would also vote for term limits, if legislation were presented to him on the matter, in addition to term limiting himself. 

Nicholas said McCormick’s position could be a good way to get independents who are “miffed at the system” to support his candidacy. 

Crampsie suggested that McCormick’s promise hints at trouble in his campaign.

“I think it just reeks of desperation,” she said. “Because he’s already run and lost once, he’s running again, and now he’s telling us, basically, please let me do this and then I’ll stop bothering you after two terms.”  

McCormick lost the GOP primary in the U.S. Senate race in 2022 to Mehmet Oz by less than 1,000 votes.

“It doesn’t really instill a whole lot of confidence in how he thinks his campaign is doing if he’s already going to tell us when he’s going to stop doing the job,” she added. 

Borick said that there are moments in American politics, like the 1990s during House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Contract for America” and the GOP-led Tea Party wave during the early years of the Obama administration, in which Republican officials made term limits a message for their campaign. 

I think it just reeks of desperation.

– Democratic strategist Brit Crampsie

Former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) publicly term-limited himself in the U.S. House to three terms before running for U.S. Senate in 2010. Although he never formally committed to two terms if elected to the Senate, he told voters it was his “expectation” that he would only serve two terms. He did not seek re-election for a third term in 2022. 

Toomey said he believes honoring that initial term-limit pledge in the House helped him politically. “I think a lot of voters respect that and they are grateful and they know that many people do not honor that commitment,” Toomey told the Capital-Star. 

There are other examples of members of Congress who did not stick to a campaign promise to limit their time in office. In 2002, then-U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) backed dropped the pledge he made in the 1990s to only serve five two-year terms in the House. Pitts served for 20 years before he retired in 2016. 

In 2022, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) did not follow through on his self-imposed two-term limit in the Senate and sought a third term. He won re-election over then-Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes by 1 percentage point later that year. 

“You tell voters you’re gonna do one thing and then you don’t do it on, you know, something as major as asking for their vote, they’re going to question your credibility across the whole spectrum of what your office does,” Crampsie said. 

Not the deciding factor

While term limits polls well as an issue, it likely won’t be the deciding factor for voters when choosing which candidate to support. 

“It’s certainly not the top of the mind concern of voters,” Borick said, adding that if voters were given a list of issues, term limits would not be a big selling point.

“I think voters are really more concerned about pocketbook issues,” Crampsie said. “And that’s what Bob Casey is talking about.”

“Dave’s gonna have a very strong message about how to get the economy growing and inflation under control, and that includes getting spending under control,” Toomey told the Capital-Star. 

Crampsie also said abortion will have a prominent role. 

“They’re concerned about access to abortion,” she said. “And he’s (McCormick) changed his position on that two or three times depending on what time of day it is.” 

Trickle down theory

With the race just under six months away, both candidates have attempted to link the other with the presidential candidates, which can have a trickle down effect on their race. 

Recent polls released by AARP Pennsylvania and Muhlenberg College showed former President Donald Trump with a slight lead over President Joe Biden. 

However, those polls showed Casey with a slight lead over McCormick. The AARP poll has Casey ahead 48% to 44%, but McCormick has the edge among voters over age 50.

Toomey says the polls hold encouraging news for McCormick.

“So what’s remarkable is that he’s as close as he is,” Toomey told the Capital-Star. “And Bob Casey is below 50%, which is a dangerous place for a universally known incumbent to be.”

“When I look at the polling data, I think it’s very encouraging for Dave McCormick, I would have no expectation that he would be in the lead at this point,” Toomey added, saying he thinks McCormick will close the name ID gap as the campaign progresses.

However, Casey has a history of outperforming other Democrats in Pennsylvania winning by at least 9 percentage points in his three bids for U.S. Senate. 

Pollsters show a tighter race this time around with the well-funded McCormick campaign. The Cook Political Report, a national ratings outlet, rates the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania as leans Democratic. 

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