Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania sheriff rips ‘weak’ Bob Casey’s record on fentanyl in scathing new McCormick ad: ‘My son would be alive today’
Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick is taking aim at his Democratic opponent and tugging at Pennsylvania’s heartstrings in a new campaign ad showing the impact of fentanyl — and the open border policies that allow it to flow freely — on American families.
In the 30-second spot, Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott speaks solemnly into the camera, sharing his experience with fentanyl, not only as an officer of the law, but also as a bereaved father.
“Three high schoolers die from fentanyl every day. As a sheriff, I see it. As a father, it happened to me,” Ott said, while a piano played softly in the background.
Then comes the attack.
“If the border was secure, chances are my son would be alive today,” Ott continued.
“We can’t bring back the people we’ve lost. But we can get rid of the weak politicians like Bob Casey who let it happen.”
Fentanyl killed 4,000 Pennsylvanians last year, and the McCormick campaign hopes to pin the drug epidemic and its death toll on Casey, a three-term incumbent who is leading in the polls.
Record-breaking illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Biden administration has fueled GOP messaging, which highlights the role of lax border security as a culprit for fentanyl deaths.
The Ott ad is the latest shot fired in the Casey-McCormick race, a hotly contested battle in a major swing state where ad spending is predicted to break records this cycle.
In July, Casey attacked McCormick, who was CEO of Bridgewater Associates when the company held a $1.7 million stake in China’s largest synthetic opiate manufacturer. McCormick fired back, calling Casey the “ultimate liar and hypocrite” when it turned out the senator holds a three-cent stake in the same company in his personal stock portfolio.
Now the fentanyl blame game has reached the southern border.
Last week, a PAC supporting McCormick ran an ad with the Beaver County sheriff tying “Casey’s open border policy” to fentanyl, drug dealers, and human traffickers.
This week, there’s a new sheriff in town repping McCormick — and he’s not holding back.
“If I could talk to Senator Casey, if this happened in your family, wouldn’t you give as much as you could give? Wouldn’t you provide whatever is needed to make sure you gave the safety to try and stop it from coming into your home?” Ott said in a two-minute version of the ad.
But other advocates fighting the fentanyl crisis don’t place the blame on Casey.
Last week Casey hosted Gregory Swan, the founder of Fentanyl Fathers, at his Pittsburgh home with other families affected by the fentanyl crisis to hear their stories.
Swan’s group, which educates America’s youth about the dangers of fentanyl, featured one of its surrogates in a commercial with Casey, and defended his record on the issue.
“In terms of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, he got that through as a federal law. So he’s no lightweight when it comes to” fentanyl, Swan told The Post.
The law he refers to sanctions the manufacture and trafficking of illicit fentanyl and its precursors by Chinese criminal organizations and Mexican cartels.
Still, Swan isn’t fully sold on Democrats’ policy solutions.
“The border is not secure. That’s an issue with us,” Swan said.
“Democrats are definitely the owners of the influx of migration, which has brought the drugs. You have a lot of people who are unvetted. It’s pouring, pouring in.”
Beyond stopping Chinese fentanyl precursors and prevention through awareness, Swan said, “You need someone with cojones to take care of the cartels.”
McCormick’s offered an aggressive solution, telling The Post: “We should identify the cartels as terrorist organizations,” and “use our military capacity,” to destroy them.”
Pennsylvania
State College, Pennsylvania: 2026 USA TODAY 10BEST Readers’ Choice Awards
Pennsylvania
What the war with Iran could mean for gas prices in western Pennsylvania
The war with Iran could start impacting your wallet as soon as today.
Jim Garrity from AAA East Central says oil prices are up.
“They’re hovering around $72. They were pretty consistently around $65, $66 for a while,” he said.
Nationally, AAA said the average for a gallon of regular sits at about $3, up approximately six cents from last week.
In Pennsylvania, it’s around $3.12 a gallon, and in the Pittsburgh region, it’s around $3.24 a gallon. That’s actually down about four cents from last week.
Garrity added that gas prices this time of year would already be increasing, usually because of higher demand for the warmer months and the production of the summer blend of gas used for those months.
The impacts of what’s happening in Iran may not be immediate, which could be part of why our region and the state overall have not seen a spike yet, he said.
“It could be a couple of days later. It could be up to a week later,” Garrity said.
A lot of people are watching what happens with the Strait of Hormuz. Iran borders it to the north, and 20% of the world’s oil goes through it.
Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, and China gets a lot of that oil.
“If there is an impact there, you could see oil start to come in from other parts of the world, which has a downstream effect on [the United States],” Garrity said.
One way you can save on gas if prices increase in our area is by slowing down.
“When you drive faster every five miles, over 50 miles an hour, your fuel efficiency is going down,” Garrity said. “You’re making the car work harder, making the gasoline consumption less effective.”
Garrity added that in 2022, when our area and many others saw some of the highest gas prices ever recorded, people changed their driving habits.
“We saw people make seemingly permanent changes to their driving behaviors, driving less in general, consolidating trips,” he said.
Pennsylvania
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