What to Know
- Preparing to retire in less than two months, Senator Pat Toomey says he has no regrets about not being on the ballot in the 2022 election cycle in Pennsylvania but still believes he would have won if he had ran this year.
- In an exclusive interview with NBC10's Lauren Mayk, Toomey said Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano was “never competitive” but called Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz “a very good candidate” who ran a good race but was damaged by a brutal primary.
- Toomey also said that former President Trump played a role in Republicans losing in Pennsylvania and some other states.
Preparing to retire in less than two months, Senator Pat Toomey says he has no regrets about not being on the ballot in the 2022 election cycle in Pennsylvania.
“I was ready to move on,” Toomey said in an interview with NBC10 at his Allentown office.
Toomey has served 18 years in Congress - 12 in the Senate and 6 in the House - and plans to return to the private sector, though he says he doesn’t yet know where and is waiting until he’s out of office to explore any options.
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The Republican Senator announced his decision to leave public office before the 2020 election, saying at the time that he believed if he ran, he’d win. Asked if he still felt that way today, Toomey said he did.
“Yeah, I think so,” Toomey said. “I’ve been in five general election races and I’ve won all five. I think I’ve done a good job in the Senate. I think I probably would have been rewarded with another term, but we’ll never know.”
Instead, his party suffered two statewide losses for two open seats – his seat in the Senate and Pennsylvania’s governor’s office.
Decision 2022
Coverage of the 2022 elections
“I think we had a real problem at the top of the ticket,” said Toomey, referring to Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.
Mastriano lost by more than 14 points, according to current data on the Pennsylvania Department of State website, while Republican Senate candidate Oz lost by less than 5 points.
Toomey said Mastriano was “never competitive” but called Oz “a very good candidate” who ran a good race but was damaged by a brutal primary.
Toomey also said that former President Trump played a role in what happened in Pennsylvania and some other states.
“I think he contributed to the problems that Republicans had,” Toomey said. “I think if you look across the country there’s a very high correlation - candidates that were seen as ultra pro-Trump kind of candidates bought into the, you know, election denial story and wanted to relitigate the 2020 election, those kinds of candidates dramatically underperformed conventional Republicans.”
The former president’s visit to Pennsylvania for a rally right before Election Day was also “unhelpful,” Toomey said.
“The best strategy for Republicans this past election was to focus on the failure of the Biden administration,” Toomey said. “When Donald Trump comes into town it’s a reminder of his hopes to be president again. It’s a totally different topic and conversation. It was not helpful to Republican candidates.”
We’ll have more of Toomey’s thoughts on Trump’s decision to run for the White House again in part two of our exclusive interview on Tuesday.
