A Lancaster Township woman announced last week that she intends to enter the Republican primary for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, pitting her against former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick.
Brandi Tomasetti, secretary and treasurer for Conestoga Township, hasn’t filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to enter the race, but she has started social media pages and a website to promote her candidacy.
“I’m just a fed-up American. I’m sick of seeing everyone fighting,” Tomasetti told LNP | LancasterOnline. “I really just want to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats.”
Tomasetti, 32, cited her frustration with the number of career politicians who are in office.
To win the GOP nomination to face U.S. Sen. Bob Casey this fall, she’ll have to best McCormick, the 2022 Senate primary runner-up who has already garnered support from much of the state’s Republican leadership. He’s been endorsed by the state Republican Party and each GOP member of the congressional delegation, including Lancaster County’s U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker.
“He just wants to win an election,” Tomasetti said of McCormick. “We need fresh ideas and new people with fresh perspectives.”
Tomasetti calls McCormick a “RINO Republican” in her campaign launch video, using an acronym that stands for Republican in Name Only.
In the video, she asks for volunteers to help her campaign gather the 2,000 signatures needed by Feb. 13 to appear on April’s primary ballot.
Describing herself as a “survivor of our broken system, a follower of Jesus Christ and an American patriot,” Tomasetti pledged to reduce the federal debt, reform the health care system, improve access to mental health services nationwide and adopt good governance initiatives — like expanding transparency of lobbying efforts and campaign finance disclosures.
Tomasetti’s website features a page titled “women only,” where she details legislation that she’d support to combat workplace mistreatment and improve access to paid family leave and flexible work arrangements for women. She said her support for those policies is inspired by being raised by a single working mother.
“Women are often more susceptible to being taken advantage of in the workplace, with their compensation not always reflecting the multifaceted roles they undertake,” Tomasetti said. “The time is now for real change to employment law for women.”
Tomasetti is a graduate of Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, where she obtained a degree in nutrition and dietetics.
In a Jan. 15 post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Tomasetti publicly endorsed Donald Trump as the GOP nominee against incumbent Joe Biden in this year’s presidential race. LNP previously reported that Tomasetti has been a longtime supporter of Trump, donating money to past campaigns and attending several of his rallies.
Meanwhile, McCormick has said he will not publicly endorse any candidate in the GOP primary but will support whoever is the party’s nominee in the general election.
McCormick has visited the county on multiple occasions across his 2022 and 2024 campaigns, most recently he attended an invite-only dinner at Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl Township hosted by PennAg Industries Association.
Regardless of who wins the Republican nomination, the candidate will have to take on the arduous task of unseating Casey, a three-term incumbent who’s longest-serving Democratic senator in Pennsylvania history.
Casey has one of the most recognizable names in Pennsylvania politics, as his father, Bob Casey Sr., was a two-term Democratic governor in the 1980s and early 1990s. In Casey’s last run for reelection, in 2018, he defeated Republican Lou Barletta by more than ten points. Barletta, a four-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, won Lancaster County that year with 53% of the vote.
