One Republican from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley is backing another.
Rep. Charlie Dent, who is in his third term representing the 15th District in and around Allentown and Bethlehem, is backing the Senate candidacy of his House predecessor Pat Toomey, who also represented the district for three terms (1999-2005).
Endorsements from individual lawmakers rarely influence votes. And it's not as if Dent was going out on a limb in endorsing Toomey over his much lesser-known primary opponent, Peg Luksik, after Republican Sen. Arlen Specter said last month that he was switching parties.
But candidates for office like to publicize endorsements -- even the unsurprising ones -- to convey support within the party.
"He is the presumptive nominee. He is the front-runner, and I believe he's going to be well-positioned and prepared to take whoever the Democrats nominate," Dent said in a radio interview this morning that Toomey's campaign circulated to reporters.
At the moment, that Democrat appears to be Specter, who changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic because he thought that he was going to lose to Toomey in a GOP primary.
Dent opposes the Republican leadership more frequently than most House Republicans and is less conservative than Toomey, who headed the conservative political group Club for Growth. But Dent said that "there is so much that unites" Republicans and praised Toomey's knowledge of fiscal policy.
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