With Donald Trump’s path to the White House looking less likely by the day, Republicans are rightly worried about maintaining control of the U.S. Senate should Hillary Clinton become president.
Much of the problem for vulnerable GOP incumbents is that they are free traders and small-government types in states where Trump’s big-government protectionist messaging resounds: Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. While Ohio seems to be safe for Republicans (Rob Portman is comfortably ahead there while Trump remains competitive), Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Mark Kirk in Illinois both trail their Democratic challengers in the polls, though not to the degree Trump trails Clinton in those states.
Pennsylvania, however, is a bit of an anomaly. Clinton leads Trump in the Keystone State by nearly 7 percentage points, according to the Real Clear Politics average. But Republican Pat Toomey, who leads by four in a recent Quinnipiac poll, is outperforming Trump bigly. Toomey is doing well with independents, and slightly trails Democratic rival Katie McGinty with women—a constituency Trump does poorly with.
Why?
Without embracing Trump explicitly, Toomey has come to the center on trade, closer to a position Trump and Democrats hold. While Toomey voted for trade promotion authority for Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership, in August, he came out against TPP.
Toomey, also, has largely avoided the “will you or won’t you” debate over Trump by refusing to by refusing to say whether he’ll vote for him. A risky strategy at the beginning of Trump’s rise seems, here, to be paying off for Toomey.
G. Terry Madonna, who runs the Franklin & Marshall College Poll tells Reuters: “I think for him he’s making the right choice, because I think he has to have it both ways… He’s between a rock and a hard place, and he’s chosen to stay in the middle.”
Another factor working in the Pennsylvania Republican’s favor is the unpopularity of Obamacare, which Toomey first took political advantage of in his first election to the Senate in 2010. Six years later, Obamacare is unraveling, and Pennsylvanians are seeing diminished choices in the Obamacare “marketplace” and substantially higher rates.
McGinty is getting hammered for her support of Obamacare, highlighted in an advertisement by Americans for Prosperity reminding voters McGinty said: “The Affordable Care Act is something that Democrats have to be proud of.” The group is using the ad to “micro-target” Keystone voters online, particularly on YouTube.
Beth Anne Mumford, AFP’s Pennsylvania state director, suggests McGinty’s attempt at playing things both ways isn’t working:
McGinty has repeatedly tried to link Toomey to the Republican nominee, but Toomey’s calculated distance from Trump has insulated him from the New York businessman’s recent scandals. In a televised debate with McGinty this week, Toomey told voters “at some point I probably will” say whether or not he’ll vote for Trump.
Whether Toomey will make good on his promise, and what he ultimately says, could decide his—and the Republican party’s—future in the Senate.
