Vulnerable GOP senator: ‘Increasingly likely’ Clinton will win
Sen. Pat Toomey pitched himself on Wednesday as a check on Hillary Clinton, saying the Democratic nominee will likely win the presidential race.
“Look, it certainly looks — we don’t know — but it certainly looks increasingly likely that Hillary Clinton is going to win this presidential election,” the Pennsylvania Republican told the PennLive editorial board.
{mosads}He stressed that unlike his Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty, he would not be a “rubber stamp” for a Clinton administration.
“Do we in Pennsylvania want to have a rubber stamp for Hillary Clinton, and maybe a Senate that’s a rubber stamp for Hillary Clinton … or do we want a senator that’s demonstrated independence?” he asked.
Toomey has hounded McGinty over her support for Clinton and on Wednesday added that the Democratic presidential nominee is “permanently disqualified.”
Republican senators, including Toomey, are increasingly pitching themselves and a GOP-controlled Senate as a check on a Democratic White House as GOP nominee Donald Trump lags behind Clinton in national polls.
Clinton is currently leading both in Pennsylvania and nationally by an average of nearly 7 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.
Toomey is the only GOP senator up for reelection who has not said whether he will support Trump, despite disagreeing with his numerous controversial statements.
While roughly a dozen senators unendorsed Trump or called on him to drop out of the presidential race earlier this month over his 2005 comments about groping women, most Senate Republicans are still planning to vote for him while stressing that they don’t agree with all of his policies.
Toomey said Wednesday that he doesn’t have a “personal deadline” for announcing when he will make his decision.
“I have lots of serious concerns about Donald Trump. I think he’s a badly flawed candidate. I have publicly criticized him for many of the things that he has said,” he told the editorial board. “I find an awful lot about him that is very objectionable and very disturbing.”
McGinty has tried to make Toomey’s public indecision on Trump an issue heading into November, echoing a larger Democratic strategy to try to link Senate Republicans to their struggling presidential nominee.
Toomey is currently leading McGinty by less than a percentage point, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polling in the race.
Democrats need to pick up five Senate seats — or four if they also retain the White House — to win back the majority.
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