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Toomey stops at rail museum

Senator: GOP Senate could serve as check or important aid

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., struck at opponent Katie McGinty during a campaign stop at the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum on Tuesday.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., may have been the headliner at an Altoona campaign stop Tuesday, but the most revealing comment on the state’s Senate race might have come from his colleague, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

“She’s going to rubber-stamp Hillary Clinton,” Tillis said of Toomey’s Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty, before a brief pause. “She’s going to rubber stamp — if Hillary wins, and I hope that doesn’t happen.”

His suggestion that McGinty would align with a President Clinton was one of several implicit suggestions that Republican candidate Donald Trump is doomed to lose in two weeks. Many Republicans have increasingly framed the election as a war for the Senate, with Toomey’s close, hard-fought race against McGinty one of the most important fronts.

At his stop at the Railroaders Memorial Museum, Toomey struck at McGinty, a former state official and Department of Environmental Protection head, as a tax-hiking ally of Clinton who would march in lockstep with Democratic leaders.

It’s a common refrain for Toomey, who has declined to explicitly endorse or oppose his own party’s nominee. He reiterated that refusal in a brief interview after his Altoona stop, saying reporters are more interested in his presidential endorsement than voters are.

Instead, Toomey focused on the same issues he has hammered in TV commercials: He said McGinty backs “sanctuary cities” like Philadelphia that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and supports U.S. deals with the Iranian government.

For the fellow Republican senators who appeared with Toomey during his cross-state campaign trip, however, the key issue is simply control of Congress. With Trump trailing Clinton in nearly every poll and some polls showing Republican Senate control likely to slip, the GOP has rallied to keep Democrats in a narrow minority.

“Pennsylvania has been given a privilege. What is being contested now may be control of the United States Senate. And it’s very easy to imagine that that control comes through the state of Pennsylvania,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told the crowd of about 75. “Toomey’s busting his rear, but it is up to y’all, frankly, to get him elected.”

Toomey declined to say whether he thinks a Clinton presidency is a foregone conclusion. But regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, he said, a Republican Senate could serve as either a check or an important aid.

While Toomey has indicated he supports at least a few of Trump’s proposals — eliminating or renegotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, for example — he has openly disagreed with the real estate mogul’s suggestion that the Nov. 8 election will be “rigged” against him.

Nevertheless, Toomey said Tuesday that he accepts the state Republican Party’s new lawsuit aimed at allowing poll watchers to cross county lines on Election Day. State Democrats have dismissed the suit as a “publicity stunt” in line with Trump’s calls for his supporters to patrol polling sites in large cities.

Despite Toomey’s reticence to take a firm stand in the presidential race and his assurances that the election will be fair, at least some of his supporters disagreed Tuesday.

Speaking outside the museum, one supporter told a small group in Trump shirts and hats: “(A voter) doesn’t need an ID. He might have voted three times, as three other dead people. You don’t know.”

Mirror Staff Writer Ryan Brown is at 946-7457.

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