Bob Casey is a United States Senator from Pennsylvania, and he is a member of the Democratic Party. There has been some speculation that Senator Casey could potentially become a candidate for US President in the 2020 election. Here’s an excerpt from an article on Philly.com discussing the possibility: “In case you missed it — which you easily could have, with the Thanksgiving holiday and attendant travel, eating, drinking and such — Bob Casey says he might run for president.”
With speculation growing about Senator Casey’s potential Presidential run, it looks like the BobCaseyForPresident.com domain name was just registered on November 27. Interestingly, it doesn’t appear to have been registered by Mr. Casey, a supporter of his candidacy, or even a domain name speculator.
According to Whois records at GoDaddy, it appears that someone associated with the Pennsylvania Republican Party registered BobCaseyForPresident.com. The registrant email address for the domain name is an @pagop.com email address. The mailing address on the Whois record is also the mailing address listed on the Pennsylvania GOP’s website contact page. As of this morning, the BobCaseyForPresident.com domain name does not resolve to an active website.
Early this morning, I reached out to the registrant of the domain name via email to ask why he registered it and to see if he could share any information about how the domain name will be used. As of the time of publication, I did not hear back.
Should Senator Casey decide to run for President, he should be on fairly solid footing from a domain name perspective. Senator Casey already owns his exact match BobCasey.com domain name, which the Democrat has used in prior campaigns.
Registering domain names for campaigns can be a bit of a challenge for politicians. Doing so can tip off the public about a potential candidacy, but not registering them can leave them available for others to register – even opponents. I don’t know if Senator Casey would have wanted this domain name, but someone else bought it first.
They do this frequently Elliot. Did it also with Cynthia Nixon during the NY Gubernatorial. http://www.Cynthia4NewYork.com
It still redirects to DonaldJTrump.com
That one is privately registered, so it is unclear who owns it. Anyone can forward a domain name to any website.
In this particular case, it looks like the domain name was registered to someone affiliated with the Pennsylvania GOP using their @pagop.com email rather than a personal email. In my opinion, it wouldn’t have been newsworthy had it been registered privately or to a private citizen, but it becomes notable due to who registered the domain name.
Ever since the searches for Rick Santorum’s name became famous, I wonder if redirecting an opponent’s supporters is the very first thing attempted by political groups. If Casey were a more distinctive candidate, I’d say this was a smart move by some GOPer. But I’d prefer domains for stronger contenders. Our Johnkerrypresident.com domain instance is recently relevant again.