Republican David McCormick addresses supporters at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh after announcing he will enter Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race and make his second bid for the office, this time to take on Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

During a roundtable discussion in Clarks Summit, Penn. on Tuesday, Republican Senate candidate David McCormick designated himself a farmer despite his history as a white-collar hedge fund CEO.

While laying out his anti-China plan, which includes economic decoupling and banning China from the World Health Organization, McCormick floated barring the nation from purchasing U.S. farmland. He implied his expertise on the subject because he owns “a big farm.”

“And finally, as a farmer that’s got a big farm in Colombia County, stop the strategic purchase of farmland by China across the United States,” McCormick said at a Building America’s Future PAC event.

The new title directly contradicts what he said a month ago at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. He told a crowd that although he grew up on a farm as a kid, did farm tasks like baling hay and now owns a 300-acre family farm in Bloomsburg, he does not consider himself a farmer.

“But I’m not a farmer … That’s a title that you earn, and I haven’t earned that title. But I’ve worked around it, and I worked around enough to know how important it is to Pennsylvania,” McCormick told PA Ag Republicans, according to Penn Live.

According to an AP News report from 2022, McCormick boasts an estimated net worth somewhere between $116 million and $289 million. The assets that contribute to this net worth include McCormick’s aforementioned Pennsylvania farm, in addition to a $2.8 million home in Pittsburgh, a $4.1 million Dallas condo, a ranch in Colorado worth at least $5 million and a $16 million mansion in Connecticut he rents.

Despite his repeated anti-China rhetoric, in which he blames Democrats and his probable opponent Sen. Bob Casey (D) for getting “China wrong for more than two decades,” McCormick routinely invested millions in Chinese companies as the CEO of the hedge fund FreeMarkets. He also took part in the outsourcing of thousands of American jobs, including in his debatable “home state” of Pennsylvania.

This is the second cycle in a row where McCormick is attempting a U.S. Senate run after losing to former daytime TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz in the 2022 GOP primary elections. Similar to McCormick, Oz faced scrutiny for his loose ties to Pennsylvania and financial investments in China.