Bob Casey Jr.


Robert Patrick Casey Jr. is an American lawyer and politician who served from 2007 to 2025 as a United States senator from Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Casey is the son of Bob Casey Sr., a former governor of Pennsylvania. After graduating from the College of the Holy Cross and the Catholic University of America, he practiced law in Scranton before beginning his political career as Pennsylvania Auditor General, a position he was elected to in 1996 and held until 2005.
In 2002, Casey ran for governor of Pennsylvania, but lost the Democratic primary to Ed Rendell. After being term-limited out of his position as auditor general, Casey was elected treasurer in 2004. In 2006, Casey ran for the U.S. Senate and defeated the Republican incumbent, Rick Santorum. Casey was reelected in 2012 and in 2018. In 2024, he narrowly lost reelection to Republican nominee David McCormick by a 0.22% margin.

Early life and education

Robert Patrick Casey Jr. was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 1960, one of eight children of Ellen and Bob Casey Sr., the 42nd governor of Pennsylvania. He is of Irish descent.
Casey played basketball at Scranton Preparatory School, from which he graduated in 1978. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1982, and received a Juris Doctor from the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1988. Between college and law school, Casey served as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and spent a year teaching 5th grade and coaching basketball at the Gesu School in Francisville, Philadelphia. He practiced law in Scranton from 1988 until 1996.

Early political career

State auditor

Casey ran for Pennsylvania State Auditor General in 1996, winning the Democratic nomination. He won the general election and was reelected in 2000, serving two terms, from 1997 to 2005.
In a 2002 PoliticsPA feature story designating politicians with yearbook superlatives, Casey was named "Most Likely to Succeed".

2002 gubernatorial election

Casey attempted to follow in his father's footsteps by running for governor of Pennsylvania. He faced former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell in the Democratic primary election. Rendell had run for governor and lost to Casey's father in 1986. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party supported Casey, whom it saw as more electable than Rendell due to his popularity among Democrats statewide, strong support from unions, and name recognition. He chose Jack Wagner as his running mate.
In a bitter primary, classified as the then-most expensive in Pennsylvania's history, Rendell won the nomination by winning only 10 out of 67 counties: Philadelphia and its Delaware Valley suburbs, its Lehigh Valley exurbs, Lancaster, and Centre, the home of Penn State University. Casey endorsed Rendell after the primary and Rendell won the general election.

State treasurer

In 2004, Casey, who was term limited as auditor general, was elected State Treasurer. He served in this position from 2005 to 2007.

U.S. Senate (2007–2025)

Elections

2006

In 2005, Casey received calls from U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader. Both asked him to run for U.S. Senate in the 2006 U.S. Senate election against Republican incumbent Rick Santorum. On March 5, 2005, Casey launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination. His run for the Senate was his fifth statewide campaign in nine years.
Casey was almost immediately endorsed by Governor Ed Rendell, his primary election opponent from 2002. He was endorsed by two Democrats who had been mentioned as possible U.S. Senate nominees: former Congressman Joe Hoeffel, who had run against Pennsylvania's other Senator, Arlen Specter, in 2004, and former State Treasurer Barbara Hafer, whom many in the abortion rights movement had attempted to convince to run against Casey in the Democratic primary.
Casey's more socially conservative views led to two challenges in the Democratic primary. His two challengers, college professor Chuck Pennacchio and pension lawyer Alan Sandals, argued that Casey's views on abortion and other social issues were too conservative for most Pennsylvania Democrats. Casey challenged this, arguing his opinions gave him cross-party appeal. He defeated both challengers in the May 16 primary with 85% of the vote.
On election night, Casey won the race with 59% of the vote to Santorum's 41%. Casey's 17.4-point victory margin was the highest ever for a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania. It was also the largest for a challenger to any incumbent Senator since James Abdnor unseated George McGovern by 18.8 points in 1980.

2012

Casey sought reelection in 2012. His prospects were uncertain. Observers noted that as the election approached, Casey, an early supporter of Obama, had "started to oppose the president outright or developed more nuanced responses to events that differentiate him from Mr. Obama. Analysts say Mr. Casey wants to put some distance between himself and a president whose job approval ratings in Pennsylvania are poor". In December 2011, it was reported that the AFL–CIO would spend "over $170,000" on pro-Casey TV ads.
Casey easily defeated challenger Joseph Vodvarka in the Democratic primary, and faced the Republican nominee, former coal company owner Tom Smith, in the general election. He defeated Smith on November 6, 53.7% to 44.6%, making him the first Democrat elected to a second term in the Senate from Pennsylvania since Joseph S. Clark Jr. in 1962.

2018

Casey defeated the Republican nominee, U.S. Congressman and former Hazelton mayor Lou Barletta, 55.7% to 42.6%. The victory made Casey the first Democrat to be elected to a third term in state history, as well as the first to win six statewide elections.

2024

Casey ran for a fourth Senate term in 2024 and lost to Republican nominee David McCormick by 0.22%, in the closest Senate race of the 2024 cycle. In an interview after the election, Casey attributed his defeat to not winning enough votes in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, while losing ground in the state's rural areas.

Tenure

Casey endorsed Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries of 2008. The Pennsylvania Report said he "struck gold" by endorsing Obama early in the primary, a move that gave him "inside access to the halls of the White House". Casey campaigned across Pennsylvania in support of Obama's candidacy in the months leading up to the primary in that state; they bowled together at Pleasant Valley Lanes in Altoona.
Casey has been called an "even-keeled moderate, not only in tone but in policy", but after Donald Trump became president in 2017, Casey developed a "new, saltier social media prowess". His outspoken opposition to many of Trump's actions prompted one local media outlet to describe his new strategy before his 2018 reelection campaign as "Oppose Trump every chance he gets".
In February 2018, while speaking to John Catsimatidis on New York radio station WNYM, Casey issued a warning to special counsel Robert Mueller not to deliver a report on his findings in the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections investigation too near to the 2018 midterm elections. While saying he could not "make any assumptions about where the Mueller investigation is going", he said he "would recommend Mueller not release a report on his findings near the midterms" because it would "distract from elections or cause people to question the election's integrity".

Committee assignments

  • Committee on Finance
  • *Subcommittee on Health Care
  • *Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness
  • *Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
  • Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
  • *Subcommittee on Children and Families
  • *Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
  • Select Committee on Intelligence
  • Special Committee on Aging

    Caucus memberships

  • Afterschool Caucuses

    Political positions

Economic issues

In 2014, Casey released a report on income inequality in Pennsylvania and urged Congress to raise the minimum wage, extend unemployment insurance, and increase funding for early education. He has said he believes that the United States has not exhausted its options to stop foreign countries from flooding the country with steel supplies, and that he wanted the Trump administration to defend nuclear power in Pennsylvania.
In 2017, Casey was one of eight Democratic senators to sign a letter to President Trump noting government-subsidized Chinese steel had been placed into the American market in recent years below cost and had hurt the domestic steel industry and the iron ore industry that fed it, calling on Trump to raise the steel issue with President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping in his meeting with him.
In 2023, Casey introduced two bills focused on workplace AI and worker surveillance, including the No Robot Bosses Act, which prohibits employers from solely using an automated decision system to make employment-related decisions.
In 2024, Casey introduced the Shrinkflation Protection Act, which would prevent companies from selling smaller sizes of product without lowering prices, and the Price Gouging Prevention Act, which would create a federal ban on "grossly excessive price increases".

Education

As a candidate for state treasurer in 2004, Casey opposed school vouchers and supported using state funds "to increase the availability of safe, quality and affordable early care and education for families that choose to use these programs".
Casey questioned Trump's nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education on the grounds that she and her husband had donated to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which seeks to "defend individual rights on college campuses". He asked DeVos to "fully explain whether she supports the radical view that it should be more difficult for campus sexual-assault victims to receive justice". In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate wrote that "FIRE vigorously defends the free-speech and due-process rights of college students and faculty" and that the organization "is nonpartisan and has defended students and faculty members on the left and right", making "common cause with politically diverse organizations ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to The Heritage Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty and the Cato Institute". Casey's position was challenged in USA Today by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, who wrote that, contrary to a letter in which Casey and Senator Patty Murray described campus sexual assault as "affecting millions of college students", 5,178 campus rapes were reported in 2014. Politico ran a prominent piece that echoed Casey's characterization of FIRE, while National Review and other publications assailed Casey and defended FIRE.