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A former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the presidential election, has announced he will not vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump this November.
Pat Toomey, who represented Pennsylvania for over a decade, told CNBC on Tuesday that he will not support 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 said, referring to Trump’s lie that he was cheated out of the White House in 2020.
Toomey added: “I acknowledge that the outcome is a binary situation, but my choice is not. 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 has said that she supports a plan that would require Americans worth at least $100m 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 or not.
This potential tax would only impact around 10,000 Americans.
Harris has also released other tax proposals, including increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. The plan could reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years, according to analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Pennsylvania is one of seven swing states that will play a deciding role in the outcome of November’s election.
Harris has a lead in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Trump holding strong in Nevada, according to recent polling. The Vice President has a 3.3-point lead nationally over Trump, according to the latest average of polls.
Pennsylvania is now a main target for multi-million-dollar ad campaigns from both sides.
The Republican Voters Against Trump campaign is spending $4.5m in the state for a 30-second ad featuring testimonials from GOP voters who say they’re voting for Harris. The Democratic National Committee ran digital billboards in Pennsylvania on Labor Day that featured a photo of the former president with the caption: “Trump’s an anti-union scab!”
