PITTSBURGH — Republican Pat Toomey prevailed over Democratic challenger Katie McGinty and the odds in the most expensive Senate race in history Tuesday night after a hard fought battle to hold his U.S. senate seat.
The highly competitive race, which remained within the margin of error in the polls in the closing weeks of the race, went long into the night until the numbers in Philadelphia came in, the win kept the Lehigh Valley Republican in the Senate and the Republicans in the majority.
“Toomey’s win proves that candidates and campaigns matter and that Katie McGinty was just a bad candidate who ran a bad campaign,” said Bruce Haynes, a Republican media consultant benefited from Trump for certain,” said Terry Madonna political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College.
Toomey’s win is nothing short of a miracle said Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg Pennsylvania based GOP media consultant who worried that the top of both tickets would be too much of a detriment to his chances to hold his seat, “He had so much going against him,” said Gerow.
“Between the nominee of his own party Donald Trump at such odds with Toomey’s serious approach to governing and the threat that Hillary Clinton would drag McGinty across the finish line with her it is a testament to his tenacity that he was able to win,” he said.
“It’s clear that Clinton supporters voted for Toomey showing they wanted to ensure a change government in Washington said Gerow, “We have an electorate has a history of splitting the ballot, remember this is a state that supported both Democrat Al Gore for president and Republican Rick Santorum for senator in 2000,” he said.
The vote totals for Clinton and Trump in Pennsylvania remained close with Trump holding a slight late.
“The message voters sent us is to focus on America again,” said Rep. Tim Murphy, a suburban Pittsburgh Republican at his victory party that he was hosting on election night.
“They want to see us workout a comprehensive energy plan that will help create jobs and fixing this expensive health care system,” said Murphy.
Murphy said voters clearly wanted to send back their House and Senate majorities, but with a caveat, “They want to see us get things done,” he said.
Gerow compared Toomey’s situation this year to being caught in a storm with all of the elements working against him, “In many respects it was like he was in a row boat out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during a raging storm; moving those oars were nearly impossible,” he said.
Gerow said Toomey is respected across the aisle as a man of reason and a man who got things done, “He did things that a freshman didn’t normally do, like getting picked for the exclusive task force on deficit reduction,” he said.
When Toomey’s victory was announced the nearly 200 Republican regulars attending Murphy’s victory night celebration burst into cheers for the incumbent senator.
Toomey is considered a serious low-key legislator who prefers governing to showmanship; he quickly earned a coveted spot on the Senate Finance Committee when he first came to the senate and was the rare presence on the national and cable network news shows.
The race topped $140 million in spending by late October as Toomey and McGinty basically entered Tuesday deadlocked.
McGinty, 53, of Northeast Philadelphia, was a protégé of former governor Ed Rendell, who served as her campaign chairman. She served as the head of his Department of Environmental Protection where she helped enact the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act.
The law devised to spur Rendell’s “green economy” which requires electric companies to provide a portion of their energy from renewable sources.
Her work in the private sector after leaving the Rendell administration included serving on the boards of two energy companies caused her headaches with progressive Democrats in the state, many who may have stayed home on Tuesday or left the ballot blank.
Incoming Democratic leader Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York recruited McGinty who had finished next to last in 2014’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, she instantly received star treatment earning early endorsements from Vice President Biden and President Barack Obama in the April Pennsylvania primary.
Despite calling Toomey an “a—hole” while speaking at a union event during the Democratic National Convention in July in Philadelphia McGinty ran a fairly traditional establishment type campaign against the former chair of the Club for Growth.
“Toomey put his head down, stayed away from both Clinton and Trump and just worked his strengths and found a way to persevere in a year he should have lost,” said Madonna.
“The autopsy of this race will be blueprint for how any Republican can win in a blue state in a presidential year with a powerful Democrat at the top of the ticket,” said Haynes.
