Guests at Dave McCormick watch party feeling “cautiously optimistic”

Roughly 250 invited guests attended a Dave McCormick watch party event on Nov. 5 at the Pittsburgh Fairmont Hotel in Downtown. At the event, the guests listened to music while Fox News election reports played on several televisions in the background. 

Steve Kochanowski, a grassroots manager at Americans for Prosperity, said he’s a traditional western Pennsylvanian and is looking for someone in the energy sector to help with oil and gas energy projects. 

“I don’t care much for the economy and want to have someone there who won’t leave all our people behind in Western Pennsylvania,” Kochanowski said. “For Southwestern Pennsylvania, we need someone who’s going to focus on oil and gas.”

As Kochanowski was invited by the McCormick campaign to the event, he said he’s here for Dave. 

“I really don’t care about presidents. I’m not pleased with either option. We probably won’t see Pennsylvanian results tonight,” Kochanowski said. “I’m tired of hearing about stolen elections and fraud in Pennsylvania. I’ve been with Dave since day one. Senator Casey has just been there for so long. What really made me vote for Dave is he said he would do two terms.”

JJ Glaneman, a sophomore at Duquesne University, said he worked with the McCormick campaign leading up to election day. 

“I heard about it through friends and we do a lot of work through the campaign managers, and McCormick invited us to come down,” Glaneman, co-president of College Republicans at Duquesne, said. 

When voting, Glaneman said the main policies he was considering included the economy and the border. 

“It’s tough to live with the price of gas and the price of food. Also the border is bad. I have to say that I have a lot of friends, two sisters and a mother, and I don’t like having to worry about them being killed at the hands of illegal immigrants,” Glaneman said.

Looking at the results at about 9:40 pm, Glaneman said he was “cautiously optimistic.”

“That’s the phrase of the night, and I agree with that,” Glaneman said. “I feel Trump has it, and I will either be right, or I will be wrong.”

Gloria Hutcherson, a volunteer for the McCormick and Trump campaign, said she’s from Tennennsee but came down to volunteer at Pennsylvania due to its electoral impact. 

“We came here to knock on doors for districts. We just wanted to doorknock and advocate to get out the vote,” Hutcherson said. 

She also said she is “cautiously optimistic,” but her volunteering experience made her believe people are interested in voting for Trump. 

“As volunteers for the Trump campaign, we are very excited to see the results for tonight,” Hutcherson said. 

Serving as a volunteer for the Mighty American strike force, 14-year-old Abe Hildreth from Texas traveled to Pennsylvania with his father to “get the vote out.”

“There’s a war in Ukraine and we need to get a new president out there. There will be no new wars. I heard something about 2019 being the best year. Donald Trump is a bad man. However, we need a tough man, not the respectful one,” Hildreth said. 

Kimberlee Sweenie, a police officer for the Fraternal Order of Police, said her company endorsed McCormick as their choice of senator. 

“I’m optimistic about the election. Dave supports the police. He’s a veteran and funds the military. There’s too much defund the police going around. I think he’s a good guy and I met him many times. He’s very approachable,” Sweenie said. 

As the results were closer at about 10:30 pm, William Young of Sheridan County said they were also “cautiously optimistic.”

“I’m hoping Trump will get the border situation under control and he will stick to what is promised about no tax on social security,” Young said.