GOP senator facing reelection won’t commit to Trump

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is raising concerns that he might not be able to support Donald Trump, the latest sign of a growing split over the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee. 

“I’ve got this set of doubts,” Toomey told WAEB, a local radio station, on Monday. “And I hope we don’t get to a point where I decide I just can’t support him.”

{mosads}Toomey added, “My message to Donald Trump is: You need to unite the Republican Party if you want to win this general election. I hope to get to the point where I can enthusiastically support Donald Trump. I’m not there right now.”

Toomey is one of a handful of vulnerable GOP incumbents who are running for reelection in states previously carried by President Obama. GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) Ron Johnson (Wis.), Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Rob Portman (Ohio) have each said they will support the party’s eventual nominee.

His comments come after Trump locked down his status as the party’s presumptive nominee last week when rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich dropped out of the race following Trump’s victory in the Indiana primary.

Though Toomey previously suggested he would support Trump if he were the nominee, he’s also tried to publicly create space between the two campaigns.

“Trump was not my first, second, or third choice. I object to much in his manner and his policies,” he wrote Sunday in a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed.

Building a wall between the two races is likely an impossible task, with strategists predicting Trump will loom over the Pennsylvania Senate contest. Katie McGinty, Toomey’s Democratic opponent, has repeatedly linked the two as she seeks to unseat the GOP senator.

Trump won the state’s primary earlier this year but faces an uphill battle in November. A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t carried Pennsylvania since 1988.