David McCormick - Superpower in Peril

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

General Douglas MacArthur, at West Point, May 12, 1962

O n a rainy Friday in May 2022, I climbed into my pickup truck to drive to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, for a campaign event that evening. Eleven days later, Pennsylvanians would go to the polls to pick their Republican nominee for the open U.S. Senate seat. The race was tight, and I was meeting with supporters to build momentum heading into the final stretch.

That same day, Donald Trump also came to Westmoreland County, to hold a rally for my opponent, Mehmet Oz, whom he had endorsed a few weeks earlier. The weather could hardly have been worse for him, and only a few hundred people came out in ankle-deep mud to hear the former president speak at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds.

When my event ended around 9:00 p.m., my colleague and I got back into my Ford F-150 for the hour-long journey back home to Pittsburgh. We turned on the radio and began listening to Trumps rally. Driving through dark, rain-slicked country roads, we heard the familiar refrain of the president bragging about his record and endorsements.

Every single candidate that I endorsed won their primaries on Tuesday! We have a total record of 55 and 0!

Then I heard my name.

Dr. Oz is running against the liberal Wall Street Republican named David McCormick.

They say politics is not for the faint of heart, and I was about to be reminded why.

I had met with Donald Trump twice to discuss the campaign. When the news broke that I was considering running, in November of 2021, he called and invited my wife, Dina, and me to Florida. We didnt talk much about the race, except to recognize that, with the incumbent Republican, Pat Toomey, retiring, holding on to his seat would be vital to regaining a Republican majority in the Senate.

The second time was a few weeks before that rainy night in Westmoreland County. At the time, my campaign was surging. We entered the race in January, months after most of the candidates, but in twelve weeks we had sped to the front of the pack. We had all the momentum. Then I heard the former president planned to endorse Mehmet Oz, so I flew to Mar-a-Lago.

When I arrived, I was escorted into President Trumps office. I sat across from him and asked him simply to stay out of the race. Let us duke it out ourselves, I said. Let the voters decide on their own.

He listened and then called in his assistant Molly. On a large television against the wall, she pulled up a video of an interview I had participated in in early January 2021, not long after January 6. She played a Bloomberg segment, where, when I was asked about the political divisiveness in America, I said Trump bore some responsibility. In the same segment, the interviewer asked what I thought about President Bidens first days in office and his recently stated goal of unifying the country, and I wished him well. President Trump was unhappy with both comments.