(WHTM) – A new poll is providing insight into which candidates Pennsylvania voters would like to see run for U.S. Senate in 2024.
The poll released by the Commonwealth Foundation, which surveyed 800 registered Pennsylvania voters between June 16-19, asked voters who they wanted to see run for U.S. Senate.
Incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Casey was the lone Democrat named in the poll with 36% of voters saying they’d like to see him run. Casey announced his candidacy for a fourth term earlier this year.
Voters named five Republican candidates they would like to see run: businessman Dave McCormick, 2022 Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands, and former Pittsburgh-area Congressman Keith Rothfus.
Of the voters surveyed, 24% were unsure, 15% said none of the six people mentioned, and 5% mentioned another candidate.
McCormick led the Republicans with 17%, followed by Oz with 14%, Garrity with 7%, Sands with 6%, and Rothfus with 4%.
Oz defeated McCormick by less than 1,000 votes during the 2022 Republican primary but went on to lose the general election to John Fetterman by more than 263,000 votes.
After State Senator Doug Mastriano announced in May that he would not run for U.S. Senate, McCormick said he was “seriously considering” getting into the race.
“I am seriously considering a run for the U.S. Senate because Bob Casey has consistently made life worse for Pennsylvania families over the past 18 years, and our state deserves better,” said McCormick.”
Oz, the former television personality and doctor, has not said whether he would run a second Senate campaign after losing to Fetterman.
Garrity, a retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel, was elected State Treasurer in 2020 and will be up for re-election in 2024. She was the first Republican elected Treasurer in Pennsylvania since Barbara Hafer, who served between 1997-2005.
Sands finished fourth in the 2022 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, receiving more than 73,000 votes and 5.45% support in a crowded field. Sands grew up in Camp Hill and worked as a chiropractor, model, and actress before raising money for Donald Trump’s campaign.
Rothfus served in Congress from 2013-2019 representing the 12th Congressional District in Allegheny County before losing re-election in the 17th District to Conor Lamb. Prior to serving in Congress, he served on the Board of Directors of the Veterans Leadership Program of Western Pennsylvania and worked as a corporate attorney.
“Pennsylvania is not a purple-red state, it’s purple at best for Republicans,” Rothfus told the Associated Press in December. “A Republican can win, but you pretty much have to run a flawless campaign and you pretty much have to do everything right.”
As of June 28, no Republican candidates have publicly declared their intentions to run in 2024. In addition to Mastriano, conservative commentator Kathy Barnette announced she would not run after finishing third in the 2022 Republican Senate primary.
