(Bloomberg) — Outgoing Republican Senator Pat Toomey said Donald Trump’s hold on the party was “quickly declining” and that the former president had little chance of becoming the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2024.
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Trump has announced that he will run for the presidency again. But Republicans fell far short of expectations in last month’s midterm elections, and those losses, combined with Trump’s defeat in 2020 and the GOP’s loss of the House and Senate in 2018, have shown that voters — and the party – passed Trump.
“Republicans don’t like to lose,” Toomey, 61, said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Friday. “I don’t think Donald Trump will be our nominee. And I think that will serve us well.”
Many GOP leaders have moved further away from the former president after a dinner he held with a white supremacist leader last month.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that anyone who meets with people who hold anti-Semitic or white supremacist views “is highly unlikely to ever be elected President of the United States,” and declined to calling Trump by his name. South Dakota’s John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told a panel of Bloomberg reporters and editors in Washington this week that his party shouldn’t focus on one person and welcome a new generation of leaders.
While a growing populist movement in the GOP is challenging the traditional conservative values Toomey espouses, including free trade and less regulation, he said the 2022 midterm election showed more mainstream conservatives remain the most eligible.
“I think one of the important lessons from this past election is how well conventional Republicans have done while the ultra-pro-Trump candidates have been crushed at the same time,” said Toomey, who will leave the Senate in January after two terms.
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He said it’s also reflected in the underperformance of Trump-backed candidates like Ohio Sen.-elect JD Vance, who won the election by 6 percentage points, while Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine won another term by one Lead of 26 points won. And in his state of Pennsylvania, Toomey said Republican Senate nominee Oz Mehmet was significantly dragged down by GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, a Trump-backed candidate who challenged the outcome of the 2020 presidential campaign and lost his contest by 15 percentage points.
Outlook for 2024
Praising Oz, who was also supported by Trump, Toomey said he fought hard but was hampered by a “brutal primary that blew his negatives through the roof.”
Meanwhile, Toomey touted David McCormick, the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates and Oz’s main opponent, as a possible candidate to run against incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey, who is up for re-election in 2024.
“I think David McCormick would be a very strong contender against Bob Casey or in any other national race,” Toomey said without endorsement. “David McCormick is a very impressive guy.”
Toomey said he has no plans to go into politics after leaving the Senate. He said that he would likely enter the private sector, but that he hasn’t taken on any roles in the cryptocurrency industry or other fields.
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The Pennsylvania senator said he will not endorse Trump if he is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and he has no early favorites among possible contenders like former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Tim Scott, Senator from South Carolina. Toomey said he was “very impressed” with Scott replacing him as chief Republican on the Senate Banking Committee next year.
Toomey said Republicans should rally around some candidates before the primary begins to avoid the large list of Republican candidates that gave Trump a boost in 2016.
“My theory is that by the time voting actually takes place, that field will likely be screened out,” he said.
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