It is just after 9 p.m. on election night in an oversized suite on the 24th floor of downtown Pittsburgh’s Fairmont Hotel. All the couches and cushioned chairs have been placed along the wall and replaced by around a half dozen campaign staffers working at desks, or makeshift desks, watching data start to pour in from across Pennsylvania. In the center of it all sits Dave McCormick, looking at a monitor with his wife, Dina Powell, hovering over him, her arm on his shoulder.
It is a tender moment captured in the middle of a chaotic scene.
It’s early, and McCormick, Republican Senate challenger, is behind incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) at this moment, but there appears little panic. In fact, they are smiling. So are Mark Harris and Brad Todd, McCormick’s top campaign advisers. Harris is looking at a whiteboard with counties scribbled across the…
