Sen. Pat Toomey launches tour on security issues while Katie McGinty presses economics
WASHINGTON — Aiming to press the linchpin of his reelection campaign, Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) is launching a bus tour Sunday promoting the safety and security issues he has hitched his political career to.
The tour, set to begin Sunday in Northeastern Pennsylvania and to stop in 26 counties over eight days, arrives as several polls show Toomey falling behind Democrat Katie McGinty, who is in the midst of a month-long policy roll out stressing economic issues and the middle class.
Both are hoping to frame a tight race that could determine control of the Senate.
Toomey, a longtime fiscal hawk who made his name stressing free-market principles, has turned his focus during this campaign to issues such as the Iran nuclear deal, so-called "sanctuary cities" that limit police cooperation with immigration authorities, barring pedophiles from school jobs and expanding background checks for gun purchases. His campaign says all of those topics fit under an umbrella of keeping Pennsylvanians safer — and they believe a focus on the dangers facing the country give the senator an edge in gravitas over McGinty, who has never held elected office.
"Sen. Toomey looks forward to sharing his message of safety and security with Pennsylvanians across the commonwealth," said his spokesman, Ted Kwong. Toomey and his allies have repeatedly attacked McGinty for supporting the Iran deal and for declining to condemn Philadelphia's sanctuary city policy.
Strategists in both parties also see his focus on safety, and particularly sanctuary cities, as a way to appeal to Donald Trump supporters, without using the same incendiary style. Toomey's tour, in an RV painted with the words "security, prosperity, independence," will kick off Sunday in Luzerne, Wyoming, Susquehanna and Bradford counties, all in the northeastern to central regions where Trump is expected to be strongest.
McGinty, however, has tried to make middle class struggles the focus of the race, portraying Toomey as an ally of big business and Wall Street, not average workers. Her backers has derided Toomey's credentials on safety — noting that his career has focused on fiscal matters, not national security. He is a former derivatives trader and restaurant owner, once led the free-market group the Club for Growth, and in the Senate serves on the finance, banking and budget committees.
"Katie's the daughter of a Philadelphia police officer and the mother of three girls, so her positions on protecting our communities come from real life experience, not the Trump playbook," said McGinty spokesman Sean Coit.
McGinty so far this month has touted plans to protect Social Security and rein in banking abuses, and on Monday plans to hold an event stressing college affordability.
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