Looking back on Pat Toomey’s time as a U.S. senator

When Sen. Pat Toomey left office Tuesday, he left behind a complex and consequential legacy.

He came into the Senate as part of a new wave on the right, and leaves urging his party to break with Donald Trump.

We spoke to Toomey, nearly 20 people, including Senate colleagues, Pennsylvania operatives and officials in both parties, supporters, critics, and analysts to look back on what stood out in his career, and what Toomey’s 12 years in the Senate reveal about the country’s changing politics.

Here are five takeaways from his time in office.

When Toomey got to the Senate in 2011, he had just chased out a more moderate Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, and was part of a wave of new voices on the right. He had spent years as the head of the Club for Growth supporting primaries against Republicans who had strayed from conservative economic orthodoxy.

Toomey was elected as part of a new rightward push, and some people thought he might even be too conservative for a swing state like Pennsylvania. And he stuck to the right: His voting record looks more like that of a senator from deep red Arkansas or Wyoming. But by 2016 Donald Trump was the party’s nominee for president, Toomey kept his distance, and the GOP was on a new course.

» READ MORE: Pat Toomey didn’t change in his 12 years as a senator. The GOP did.

Toomey retains his strong conservative leanings, but his cerebral focus on economic details — including support for free trade and letting businesses operate with as few regulations as possible — has clashed with Trump-style populism, protectionism and grievances.

“His 12 years from where he started to where he ends in the party is really a fascinating era,” said Muhlenberg College pollster Chris Borick. “He really bookends it.”

While much of the GOP has become focused on combativeness and fighting “woke” culture, Toomey stayed centered on detailed economic arguments. Voters might agree or disagree with his ideas, but he held clear policy beliefs, and tried to advance them through the normal political process.

Toomey twice voted for Trump, supported most of his policies and voted to acquit in the first Trump impeachment trial. But the senator broke with Trump when the former president tried to overthrow the 2020 election.

Toomey pushed back against attempts to subvert Pennsylvania’s results and after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot Toomey was one of sevenCK Republicans who voted to convict the former president in an impeachment trial.

Some former supporters called Toomey a Republican in Name Only -- a label he once used to pressure other Republicans. Democrats argue that Toomey, for all his mild persona, enabled the partisan atmosphere that eventually turned on him.

Economic issues dominated Toomey’s tenure.

The former derivatives trader and restaurant owner was an immediate presence in the Senate, appointed as a freshman to a high-profile committee on debt reduction. He later wrote much of the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts, and significant parts of their attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the first pandemic rescue package.

His role made him one of the most influential conservatives on federal fiscal policy, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) called Toomey one of the smartest lawmakers ever served with (and the most conservative one from Pennsylvania).

Democrats and liberals said Toomey’s policies, including his tax cuts, mostly helped rich people and big businesses. The economy grew after the tax cuts, but at a similar trajectory that it was already on. And the cuts were expected to add significantly to the national deficit (though all projections were upended by the coronavirus pandemic and the massive stimulus bills, economic shocks, and inflation that came with it). Toomey points to the strong economy in the years after the tax bill passed as evidence it worked.

In a state as big and diverse as Pennsylvania, he argued, a strong economy is one thing that helps everyone.

“We create the most opportunity for the most people to have the most prosperity,” Toomey said in an interview. “That’s always been sort of the core mission.”

» READ MORE: Pat Toomey Q&A: What Pennsylvania’s retiring senator says about tax cuts, gun legislation, Jan. 6, and Trump

Toomey paired deeply conservative views with a mild, business-like personality and personal decorum. He was conservative on issues such as abortion, but didn’t crusade on them, rarely flashed anger, and even more rarely attacked opponents (or the media) in personal terms.

Toomey was more interested in the details of the tax code, business regulations, and budget documents than hot-button cultural fights.

His approach, for some, created a perception of moderation, infuriating liberal critics who said Toomey’s persona sheathed far-right views.

“It’s the difference between how he is perceived by the media and by the general population versus how he votes, which is how he should be judged,” said Neil Kohl of Tuesdays with Toomey, a group that has protested outside the senator’s office every week since Toomey’s 2016 reelection.

Toomey flew largely under the radar that year as the Trump vs. Hillary Clinton clash dominated news coverage. But Trump’s election activated a new wave of liberal activism, and in Philadelphia one strand of it turned into the weekly protests outside Toomey’s office.

If he had run again, Toomey would have had to navigate both a different GOP, and a changed landscape of opposition from the left.

Toomey’s two statewide wins make him the most successful Republican in Pennsylvania in recent history.

His approach helped him sell a conservative package to moderate swing voters. While the crucial Philadelphia suburbs have trended sharply away from the GOP, Toomey held his own his last time on the ballot, winning Bucks and Chester counties in 2016, even as Trump lagged badly in those areasCK.

It helped that Toomey also softened his image by prominently supporting background checks for gun purchases, winning endorsements from gun safety groups that most often favor Democrats.

It was the most significant example of how even Democrats who sharply disagreed with Toomey said they could work with him, seeing him as an honest broker who was willing to compromise, at times.

But the swing toward Trump has changed the Republican tenor, and its politics. This year Pennsylvania Republicans nominated a gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, so toxic Toomey wouldn’t endorse him.

Toomey, in his Senate farewell speech, urged the GOP to break with the former president.

“Our party can’t be about or beholden to any one man,” he said on the Senate floor. “We’re much bigger than that.”

Still, Toomey said he’s optimistic about his party’s future, arguing that Trump (for all his criticism of the former president) expanded the GOP’s appeal with some voters.

» READ MORE: In Senate farewell, Pat Toomey tells Republicans the GOP should be bigger than one man

“I think the Republican party is more appealing to a lot of blue collar workers, especially in small towns, that might not have considered themselves Republicans before and Donald Trump brought people into the coalition,” Toomey said in his interview with The Inquirer. “He’s also turned a lot of people away with his personality, let’s say.”

The people he turned away keep Republican operatives up at night. Despite Toomey’s relative success in the suburbs, top GOP candidates have been routed there every election since.

Toomey had long said he was only likely to ever serve two terms.

“I’ve always thought I’d do one more thing. I’d have one more career,” he said.

But he said he doesn’t have anything lined up.

“I made a very conscious decision that I don’t want to pursue anything while I’m still in office,” he said. “I don’t want any conflicts of interest, I don’t want the perception of conflicts of interest and so I’m not having any conversations with anybody. January will be here soon enough, and I’ll begin those discussions.”