“He still refuses to stand up to Donald Trump,” Hillary Clinton said of Pat Toomey. | Getty Hillary Clinton hammers Pat Toomey

PITTSBURGH — Hillary Clinton ripped Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in a speech here on Saturday, trying to link him to Donald Trump and a long list of Trump’s past incendiary statements.

It was one of the longer and sharper rhetorical barbs that Clinton has aimed at a sitting Republican senator.


“He still refuses to stand up to Donald Trump,” Clinton said, amid boos from the crowd. “Now a lot of Republicans have. They have had the grit and the guts to stand up and say he does not represent me.”

“But Pat Toomey heard Donald attack a grieving Gold Star family who lost their son in the Iraq war. He heard Donald call Mexican immigrants rapists. He heard him say terrible things about women. He heard him spread the lie that our first black president wasn’t really born in America,” she said. “Now how much more does Pat Toomey need to hear? If he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump after all this, then can you be sure he’ll stand up for you when it counts?”

Clinton also went out of her way to lift up Toomey's Democratic opponent, Katie McGinty, who worked for her husband’s administration in the 1990s, and is expected to join a Clinton rally later Saturday in Philadelphia.

Clinton hailed McGinty as “the daughter of a Philadelphia police officer” who has “devoted her professional life to protecting working families” and “exactly the kind of partner we need in the Senate.”

With Trump dropping in the polls both nationally and in key swing states, Clinton is increasingly focusing not just on winning the White House but electing enough Democratic senators to take back the majority.

“I hope you will do everything you can to elect Katie McGinty your next senator,” Clinton said.

The Toomey campaign responded within minutes of Clinton finishing her speech.

"Today is just further proof that hyper-partisan, ethically challenged Katie McGinty will be a rubber stamp for everything Hillary Clinton wants to do in Washington," said Toomey spokesman Ted Kwong. "Pat Toomey has been, and will continue to be, an independent leader in the Senate on issues ranging from gun safety to ending Wall Street bailouts."

Currently, Clinton leads Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average in Pennsylvania by 6.2 percentage points. But the RCP average also has Toomey still narrowly ahead of McGinty by 1.8 points.