Toomey won't run for Senate again, or governor, source says

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, a fiercely anti-tax and anti-regulation lawmaker who never entirely warmed to President Donald Trump, will not seek re-election in 2022, according to a person with direct knowledge of Toomey's plans.

But the biggest surprise is that, Toomey, 58, will not run for governor in 2022, when the seat becomes open, said the person, who did not want to be named divulging information from private conversations before Toomey announces it publicly.

Toomey, who is serving his second term in the presidential battleground state, will make the announcement Monday, the person said. His office scheduled an announcement for 10 a.m. in Bethlehem, near Toomey's home in suburban Allentown.

A spokesperson at Toomey's Senate office declined comment Sunday when asked whether the senator will announce that he is not running again.

The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported Toomey's plans. The timing of Toomey's announcement — in the middle of the presidential election — and his reasons for not running again were a mystery Sunday, even to many Republican insiders.

Toomey is a stalwart proponent of free markets and smaller government who was staunchly supported in the past by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and the Club for Growth, the take-no-prisoners free-markets advocacy group Toomey used to head.

But Toomey had often expressed frustration with how the Senate operates and had never promised to run for a third term.

As Pennsylvania’s only statewide elected Republican official, outside of the courts, he had been widely considered the shoo-in nominee if he decided to run for governor in 2022, when Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf is term-limited.

Toomey had long expressed an interest in running for...