Four fellow senators campaign with Toomey

As she has previously, Ms. McGinty sought to link Mr. Toomey to the presidential candidate’s controversial statements on minority groups and women.

Mr. Toomey has criticized those statements, and has neither endorsed nor rejected Mr. Trump’s bid. But Ms. McGinty scoffed that Mr. Toomey “has said he has disagreements with Donald Trump . ... Well, isn’t that dainty? Isn’t that delicate?”

Ms. Warren similarly did a none-too-subtle job of questioning the manhood of Republican foes. She referred to Mr. Trump as “pathetic” and “a small, insecure money-grubber.” As for Mr. Toomey, “He knows who Donald Trump is, but he just doesn’t have the courage to say it plainly.”

Ms. Warren laid out a progressive social and economic agenda, favoring abortion rights, an increase in the minimum wage, and laws ensuring women earned equal pay.

“We believe that equal means equal,” she said. “And that’s true in marriage, it’s true in the workplace, it’s true every place. “

Mr. Toomey said Ms. McGinty had “a complete, blind obedience to Hillary Clinton. .. In fact, her devotion is so complete that she’s decided she needs to have her own email scandal” — a reference to a court struggle over Republican efforts to obtain emails she sent while serving as chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf.

“They are required by law to disclose these, and they have refused,” Mr. Toomey said. “Maybe there’s something that she’s hiding in those emails. I don’t know: She won’t show them to us. “

The four senators he appeared with, all freshmen, echoed Mr. Toomey’s criticisms while stressing that, as Alaska’s Dan Sullivan put it, “The balance of the United States Senate likely is going to turn on what happens in this race.”

That assertion constituted a rare area of bipartisan agreement. Even if Ms. Clinton wins her race, a Republican-controlled Senate might well hamstring her on initiatives such as naming Supreme Court justices.

“We’re going to fight for the confirmation of someone who respects the Constitution [and] for somebody who doesn’t have any kind of track record of being an activist,” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the Post-Gazette at the diner gathering.

While electing Ms. Clinton would give her the power to propose nominees, he said, “We also want to assert the authority we have in the Senate.”