New York Times: “This G.O.P. Senate Candidate Says He Grew Up on A Family Farm. Not Exactly.”
PennLive’s John Baer: “Speaking Of Making Things Up, Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Dave McCormick…is Doing A Little Back-Filling About Growing Up On A Farm”
PENNSYLVANIA — Following a recent report from the New York Times that exposed David McCormick for giving “a misleading impression about key aspects of his background,” McCormick is facing scrutiny for “making things up” about his upbringing as the “disconnect” between his lies and reality is exposed.
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party also launched a mobile billboard that followed David McCormick’s campaign events across the Commonwealth, highlighting the breaking reporting and an Arabian horse was spotted outside of McCormick’s campaign event this week.
What Pennsylvanians Are Reading:
ABC27: This Week in Pennsylvania
- Dennis Owens: “There continues to be nagging reporting about your residency and your background since you just brought that up. A story today in the New York Times. You’ve claimed to grow up on a farm quote unquote ‘humble beginnings’ but the fact of the matter is your dad was a college president, you were in residences that were pretty nice. Do you want voters to think you grew up poor?”
John Baer, PennLive: WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN?
- Speaking of making things up, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick, running to unseat three-term Sen. Bob Casey, is doing a little back-filling about growing up on a farm.
- But, based on interviews in McCormick’s hometown of Bloomsburg (the state’s only town), the Times reports McCormick largely grew up in a “sprawling hilltop residence” that came with his father’s job as president of what is now Bloomsburg University.
Pennsylvania Independent: Senate candidate McCormick denies he misled voters by saying he ‘started with nothing’
- The New York Times published a story on April 19 exploring Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick’s background and contradicting his previous claims that he grew up economically disadvantaged on a family farm.
What Pennsylvanians Are Seeing:
- WATCH: Mayor Ed Gainey and United Steelworkers Call Out David McCormick’s Dishonest Record
- The Pennsylvania Democratic Party also launched a mobile billboard that followed David McCormick’s campaign events across the Commonwealth.
- A plane carrying a banner highlighting the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s website exposing McCormick’s lies was seen flying over Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
More Headlines:
- Guy Benson: “I know there was a major newspaper looking into your life story and saying oh, has he not been honest with us about his background here in Pennsylvania? Oh, look at this rich guy.”
- Jon Favreau: “…Just last week the Times ran a story about how McCormick’s claim that he grew up on a family farm is a bit misleading. He actually lived in a mansion 10 minutes down the road because his father was a college president and they merely owned the farm. And his mother raised Arabian horses as a hobby. How amazing is that? Like what?”
The National Memo: GOP Senate Nominee McCormick Grew Up In A Mansion — Not ‘On A Farm’
- David McCormick, who is Pennsylvania’s presumptive Republican U.S. Senate nominee, has often suggested he grew up poor in a rural community. But a new report finds that his upbringing was far more affluent than he’s suggested.
- Mary Gummerson, who rented part of the farm with her husband for more than three decades, told the Times that while David McCormick had spent some summers baling hay and trimming trees, his description of himself as a “farmer” was somewhat misleading.
MSNBC: Senate hopeful’s claims about ‘growing up on a farm’ draw scrutiny
- In Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick is a very wealthy, Connecticut-based former hedge fund CEO, though he wants voters to believe he’s a man of humble origins. The candidate has spoken and written, for example, about “growing up on a farm” and starting with “nothing.”
- The New York Times reported, however, that the available evidence suggests that McCormick “has given a misleading impression about key aspects of his background.”
- …The Republican’s family did own a farm, which the candidate described as the “McCormick Tree Farm” in a holiday-themed ad during his first unsuccessful Senate campaign. But the farm was “also often known locally as a place where his mother raised Arabian horses,” which was “something of a family hobby, according to local news reports from the 1970s and ’80s.”
- There appears to be a disconnect, in other words, between McCormick’s claims about starting “with nothing” and his actual family background.
Politico Playbook: What Dave McCormick Doesn’t Want You To Read
- WHAT DAVE McCORMICK DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: “This G.O.P. Senate Candidate Says He Grew Up on a Family Farm. Not Exactly,” by NYT’s Katie Glueck in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania: “He has explicitly said and strongly implied that he grew up on a farm, claimed in 2022 that he had ‘started with nothing’ and that he ‘didn’t have anything,’ and he and his campaign have recently described his parents as schoolteachers. In fact, Mr. McCormick is the son of a well-regarded college president who later became chancellor of higher education systems in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. He largely grew up in the president’s sprawling hilltop residence, which students called the president’s mansion.”
The Hill: GOP Senate candidate attacks NYT reporter over article on his upbringing
- The article, published Friday, highlighted the candidates’ claims that he grew up in rural Pennsylvania, southwest of Scranton, and “started with nothing.” The article details McCormick’s upbringing as the son of a “well-regarded college president” who “largely grew up in the president’s sprawling hilltop residence” at what is now known as Bloomsburg University.
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