Pat Toomey: I Was Not Expecting Donald Trump To Win
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey assessed his election victory as well as that of Donald Trump in the presidential race, explaining the process he went through in eventually deciding to vote for the GOP's presidential nominee.
Toomey told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that Trump's win actually took him by surprise.
"I'm still trying to process everything. I've got to be totally candid with you, I was not expecting Donald Trump to win. I didn't anticipate that he would pull this off. I thought it might be close but I'm still amazed by that. I'm obviously very grateful and humbled by the chance to serve for another six years as Pennsylvania's Senator. I think it's just a huge, huge opportunity for us. The damage that's been done over these last eight years [is] enormous and we've got a chance now, with Republicans in control of the House, the Senate and the White House to undo the damage and start to allow this economy to have the recovery we've been waiting for, have the growth and the rise in incomes. I look at this and my big takeaway is what a tremendous opportunity we have."
He revealed the decision to support Trump was not easy, be came around at the end.
"It was a genuine dilemma. Now, it wasn't a dilemma choosing between Trump and Clinton. Clinton was very easy to rule out from day one. That was never a possibility. But, I had and I still have a lot of concerns about things that Donald Trump has said, about issues regarding his temperament, about positions he's taken and I know a lot of good Republicans who had this dilemma. They resolved it by writing in Mike Pence, or someone else or otherwise not voting for Donald Trump. I decided to vote for Donald Trump because, I think, that the things we can accomplish outweigh the risks of problems with judgments or bad decisions."
Toomey also addressed the role the Philadelphia suburbs played and will play moving forward in presidential elections.
"All of the big suburban counties around Philadelphia historically have shared an important trait, which is they are swing counties. They are people who are less likely to be party line voters than people in other parts of the state. So, in any given election cycle, any strong, viable candidate of either party has a shot. I think that was proven very vividly."
