Toomey will retire after serving his Senate term
Won’t run for reelection or governor in 2022, according to sources
Sen. Pat Toomey has decided not to run for reelection or for governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, according to two people familiar with his plans, a surprise decision by the Republican with significant implications for the next elections in the state. He will serve out his current Senate term but won’t run for either of those offices, seemingly ending his career in elected office, at least for now.
A formal announcement is expected Monday. Toomey’s office on Sunday neither confirmed nor denied the senator’s plans.
The only Republican now holding statewide office other than judges, Toomey was widely seen as the likely Republican favorite for governor in 2022. His decision not to run for that office or for Senate could create two wide open contests on the Republican side, while depriving the party of running its most established political figure in Pennsylvania. It will also open a prime Senate target for national Democrats, regardless of who controls the chamber after this year’s election.
Most political insiders expected that Toomey, 58, would wait until after the 2020 election to decide his political future. It was not clear why he
decided to make an announcement now, weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election. Toomey’s absence from the ballot in 2022 could create an easier path for Democrats hoping to hold the governor’s office and flip his competitive Senate seat.
Toomey has won his two Senate elections by the slimmest of margins, but is experienced in statewide races and is a savvy political mover with significant cash in his campaign account. However, since his 2016 election, he has also become a lightning rod for liberals who have criticized him for, in their view, not standing up strongly enough to President Donald Trump. Since that year, protesters have regularly held events outside his offices. If Toomey had run again, he would almost certainly have drawn far more vehement opposition than he has faced in either of his previous statewide campaigns.
Toomey’s decision not to run for Senate isn’t entirely surprising. He has long supported term limits and before his 2016 reelection campaign said it was “likely” to be his last Senate bid. Toomey also fulfilled some longtime goals during the Trump presidency, including playing a major role in writing the 2017 bill that cut taxes and rewrote key pieces of the tax code. This year he helped craft major provisions in Congress’ coronavirus rescue package.
Still, he was seen as a potential gubernatorial candidate and had made several moves that fueled speculation he would run, including playing an unusually vocal role in critiquing Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus response — a relatively rare foray into a state-government issue. He helped raise money for Heather Heidelbaugh, the Republican running this year against Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Shapiro is seen as a likely Democratic candidate for governor, so bruising him could have helped Toomey in a potential 2022 match-up.
That’s now off the table, and creates the possibility of wide open GOP contests for both governor and senator. There’s no clear Republican favorite for statewide office, though both races could draw wide interest. Toomey is expected to complete his Senate term. If he were to leave office early, Wolf, a Democrat, could appoint his replacement, likely altering the narrow political balance in the chamber.
Toomey, a Zionsville businessman who got his start on Wall Street, has been a staunch fiscal conservative who focused squarely on economic policy while usually leaving cultural battles aside. He did, however, take on a central role in the national debate on gun laws after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, becoming one of the few elected Republicans in the country to come out in support of some tougher gun laws. Toomey wrote a bipartisan bill with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., to expand background checks to cover more purchases, breaking with many his party — though the bill failed in a contentious 2013 vote.
After that, Toomey became a go-to figure whenever the gun debate arose, but he was unable to make progress advancing the bill, especially as the Senate added Republicans. He had long signaled discomfort with Trump, refusing to say whether he would vote for his party’s nominee for president until hours before polls closed in 2016. In the end, he voted for Trump. He has also at times criticized the president’s behavior and rhetoric. But he has largely backed Trump’s agenda and appointments, and has supported his party’s push to quickly fill a Supreme Court vacancy before Election Day.
That was a reversal of the position he took in 2016, when he cited an election eight months away in opposing a confirmation vote for President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the high court. Republicans now argue this opening is different because the same party now controls the White House and Senate.
Toomey was elected to to the U.S. House in 1998 and served three terms. He ran an unsuccessful Senate primary against then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004, led the free-market conservative group The Club for Growth, and then in 2010 returned to challenge Specter again. Specter, rather than face the challenge from the right, switched parties. Specter lost the Democratic primary to then U.S.-Rep Joe Sestak, and Toomey beat Sestak in the general election to win the Senate seat. In 2016, he defeated Democrat Katie McGinty by 88,000 votes.