Former Republican PA senator blasts presidential hopefuls: ‘Neither of these candidates can be my choice’

A former conservative senator from Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the upcoming presidentialelection, has announced he will not vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump this November.

Pat Toomey, a Republican who represented Pennsylvania for over a decade, told CNBC that he will not vote for either candidate this year despite having backed Trump in the last two elections.

“When you lose an election and you try to overturn the results so that you can stay in power, you lose me,” Toomey told CNBC, referring to Trump’s false claims that he was cheated out of the White House in 2020. “You lose me at that point.”

“I acknowledge that the outcome is a binary situation, but my choice is not,” he continued. “It is an acceptable position for me to say that neither of these candidates can be my choice for president.”

The former senator also called it “absolutely essential” that Republicans win back the Senate if Harris wins the White House, due to her recent tax proposals.

Harris said she supports a plan that would require Americans worth at least $100 million to pay taxes on unrealized gains. Currently, the government only taxes profits from stocks — known as capital gains — once they’re sold. Under her proposal, these assets would be taxed as they gain value, regardless of whether they’ve been sold.

This new tax would only impact roughly 10,000 Americans.

Harris has also released other tax proposals, including increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent. The plan could reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years, according to analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Toomey’s state is one of seven swing states that will play a deciding role in the outcome of November’s election.

Harr