PENNSYLVANIA – Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said Monday that President Joe Biden is able to run a strong race and serve a second term in the Oval Office, standing by his close ally in the critical battleground state following a disastrous debate performance that’s prompting some national Democrats to question his candidacy.

Casey had stayed quiet about Biden’s performance before making his first public appearances since Thursday night’s debate, including a campaign stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the blue-collar hometown that he shares with Biden and that the president name-checked in the debate.

Casey, who is also seeking reelection in November, acknowledged that Biden had a bad debate, but also suggested that voters have bigger concerns.

“He had a bad night and debate, but I think people know what’s at stake,” Casey told reporters, arguing that voters are more concerned about issues like abortion, labor and voting rights and the fate of democracy.

“I’ve been at this a while, and I know his work,” Casey said. “And I also know that the American people and the people of Pennsylvania are going to focus on these races in the way that I just outlined.”

Casey would not elaborate on why he thinks Biden is fit and said he doesn’t worry that Biden’s debate performance would affect his own race for Senate.

They lead the ticket together in a battleground state that is critical to the Democrats’ fortunes in holding the White House and Senate. No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania’s support since Harry S. Truman in 1948.

Casey’s opponent, former hedge fund executive David McCormick — like other down-ballot Republicans — has seized on Biden’s performance, accusing Casey of lying about Biden’s fitness to be president and suggesting that Biden’s Cabinet should consider forcing him out of office, using the 25th Amendment.

The president’s debate performance last week left many donors, party strategists and rank-and-file DNC members publicly and privately saying they want the 81-year-old Biden to step aside to allow the party to select a younger replacement at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Biden spent the weekend trying to stabilize his campaign, then gathering with family as previously planned at Camp David, where they discussed the path forward.

The president and his team characterized his debate performance as an outlier, arguing one bad night shouldn’t define him or jeopardize the election.

Biden told a Saturday fundraiser on Long Island that he didn’t have a “great night” at the debate, but that former President Donald Trump’s falsehoods and reminders about the January 6, 2021, insurrection had resonated more with undecided voters.

McCormick, for his part, hasn’t commented on a blatant falsehood Trump told during the debate about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters. Trump falsely claimed the attackers were “a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”

CHEYNEY, Pa. – Cheyney University, the oldest historically Black college in the United States (HBCU) is no longer on probation. 

According to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the university has had its accreditation reaffirmed after the commission placed the school on probation last November due to alleged “insufficient evidence” that it was in compliance with multiple university standards.

The HBCU released the following statement Monday:

“Cheyney University appreciates Middle States Commission on Higher Education’s (MSCHE) review of our accreditation and its decision to remove our probationary status as of June 27, 2024. This reaffirmation of accreditation by MSCHE validates our unwavering commitment to academic and operational excellence. It also reinforces our view that an accreditation process must be fair and transparent for all institutions of higher education, including HBCUs.

While we agree with this decision, we remain disappointed by the process to arrive at this long-overdue outcome and will continue to advocate for equity and transparency. This current Commission decision is consistent with the assessment of three separate MSCHE-appointed peer evaluator teams that visited Cheyney’s campus between February 2023 and April 2024 and formally reported that Cheyney appears to meet the Commission’s Standards of Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation. Middle States’ decision reflects the undeniable progress Cheyney University of Pennsylvania has achieved under the stewardship of our administration, the dedication of faculty and staff, and the relentless support of our countless advocates who have stood by Cheyney throughout this entire process so we can serve our students and continue to uphold the legacy of our institution.” 

The university says MSCHE has requested that the school submit a customary monitoring report, due March 1, 2025 as a part of its accreditation action. 

“Our next evaluation visit by Middle States is scheduled for 2030-2031, part of our eight-year accreditation cycle,” the statement concluded.

“As a part of its accreditation action, MSCHE, has requested that the university submit a monitoring report, which is customary, due March 1, 2025. 

A western Pennsylvania county’s elected commissioners were sued Monday over a policy adopted for this year’s primary in which people whose mail-in ballots were disqualified for technical violations say they were purposely not informed in time to fix errors.

Seven disqualified primary voters, the local NAACP branch and the Center for Coalfield Justice sued Washington County’s election board over what they called “systematic and deliberate efforts” to conceal the policy by directing elections office staff not to tell voters who called that they had made errors that prevented their votes from being counted.

The lawsuit filed in county common pleas court said the policy resulted in 259 voters being disenfranchised and many of those voters still do not realize it. The seven voters who are suing, ages 45 to 85, all had their mail-in ballots invalidated because of incomplete or missing dates, the lawsuit stated. One also failed to sign the exterior envelope and another signed in the wrong place.

The lawsuit says no other county in Pennsylvania “actively conceals the insufficiency of a voter’s mail-in ballot submission, especially when a voter calls their county elections’ office to inquire whether their mail-in ballot meets the requirements and will be counted.”

“Because of the board’s actions, voters had no way of learning that their ballot would not be counted, and were deprived of the opportunity to protect their right to vote by taking advantage of an existing statutory process: voting by provisional ballot,” the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit seeks to have Washington County’s current policy declared unconstitutional as a violation of due process rights and to prevent the elections board from concealing information from voters and misleading them. It was filed by lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Public Interest Law Center and the Philadelphia-based law firm Dechert.

Washington County had notified voters their ballots were filled out incorrectly and gave those voters a chance to fix them until this year’s April 23 primary. For this year’s primary, the Washington commissioners voted 2-1 to not allow voters to cure improper ballots and had staff mark them in the statewide elections software as “received,” a status that does not tell voters their ballots won’t be counted. The two Republican commissioners were in favor, the Democrat opposed.