A one-time chief of staff to the late former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and a longtime lobbyist and political consultant from Philadelphia will run for U.S. Senate as an anti-Trump Republican.
Craig Snyder, who backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign against Donald Trump, announced his candidacy Wednesday and aimed it squarely at middle-of-the-road voters.
The seat is opening up with the retirement in 2023 of two-term Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey. Pennsylvania’s Republican and Democratic primaries are already crowded for what is expected to be one of the nation's most competitive contests for Senate in next year's election.
In his announcement video, Snyder attacks both “Trumpism” and “socialism,” notes that Republicans lost the White House and both chambers of Congress in the last two federal elections and laments that centrist voters have come to see the Republican Party as “even crazier” than the ultra-left wing.
Snyder, 60, criticizes Trump-era policies on immigration and health care, but most of all the perceived refusal of Republicans to unequivocally condemn white supremacists or oppose efforts to hold responsible the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
“In next year’s election, this party must again decide what it stands for and why it deserves the support of a majority of all voters," he said.
