“In his TV ads, Republican Senate candidate David McCormick portrays himself as a red-blooded Pennsylvanian who hunts, bales hay, and drinks pints with his old buddies at wood-paneled bars.

But a new financial disclosure offers insight into McCormick’s blue-blooded lifestyle — including a $22.5 million salary last year as CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates.

He held a longtime trustee slot at the Aspen Institute, an elite think tank, and owns an array of multimillion-dollar properties in Manhattan, Dallas, Colorado, and Pittsburgh, the filing shows. That’s along with the family ranch in Pennsylvania that he highlights in his campaign.

Those are just some of the assets held by McCormick and his wife, with a total value of at least between $116 million and $290 million, and possibly much more. Much of that is from valuable homes and investment properties, including a seven-bedroom condominium on Manhattan’s Upper East Side purchased for $13 million in 2016, property records show. It has another unit tacked on for $1.2 million more.”

• Situational Awareness: “The disclosure filed Friday provides the first public look at the vast wealth McCormick has tapped to vault himself to the top of the GOP field, along with celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz, who has also used an immense fortune to drive his campaign.
• Worth Noting: “McCormick’s single largest asset is more than $50 million in Bridgewater stock, which his campaign says he received as his payout from his time as CEO. His work at the company has come under fire because the firm raised more than $1 billion for investments in China last year, when McCormick led it. McCormick has said it was a small fraction of Bridgewater’s holdings, but according to the Wall Street Journal, it made Bridgewater one of the largest foreign managers of private money in China.”
• The Bottom Line: “The two candidates’ riches have defined the Republican primary, overshadowing other candidates. McCormick has spent almost $7 million of his own money on the campaign, with allies chipping in millions more, while Oz has spent $11 million of his money.”
• Of Note: “Exact figures for Oz’s and McCormick’s wealth can’t be determined because the Senate requires candidates to report only broad ranges of assets and debts. Some of the line items have no upper bound on their value, making it impossible to know exactly how far a candidate’s wealth extends.”

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