HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Press Club served ravioli and salad for lunch to the people attending a speech by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Katie McGinty.

But McGinty was focused on the "baloney" she says her opponent is serving middle-class voters she will fight to protect in Washington, D.C.

McGinty, former chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf, used the bulk of her 2,182-word speech to criticize Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey as a flip-flopping incumbent whose stances on guns, free trade, and the presidential election shift to suit his re-election bid.

Toomey called for gun-control measures after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre. But after his idea failed, she said, he refused to back a Democratic plan to close loopholes that allow potential terrorists to purchase military-grade weapons. On the campaign trail, he has touted his pro-gun stances that are backed by the National Rifle Association, she added.

Toomey has changed his stance on free trade agreements this election after endorsing them in a book he wrote, McGinty said. McGinty also called on Toomey to publicly state whether he supports GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

"And even as he tries to sell a new 'election year Pat,' it's baloney," McGinty said, reading from the speech. "And I'm confident Pennsylvanians just aren't going to buy it."

Others appear to be buying some of it, however.

Before McGinty's afternoon speech at a Harrisburg hotel, Toomey picked up another endorsement related to his gun-control efforts.

A gun-safety organization started by former Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona, who was wounded in a 2011 mass shooting, announced support for Toomey.

An incumbent Republican winning endorsement from a Democrat like Giffords is no small feat, according to a tweet from Jim Burn, former Pennsylvania Democratic Party chairman. "Those underestimating the significance of this endorsement are only trying to fool themselves," Burn tweeted.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, an Independent, also has backed Toomey, citing Toomey's gun-background-check rule he floated with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in 2013.

During a question-and-answer session Monday, McGinty said she respects the gun-control efforts of Giffords and Bloomberg. But she stood behind her criticism of Toomey, saying he capitulated too quickly on his Sandy Hook-related bill after it narrowly failed in the Senate and he has not actively tried to get it passed again.

"After tragedy like San Bernardino, like Orlando, the senator was literally begged to reintroduce his legislation and refused, saying let's let the Democrats take the lead," McGinty said.

Next month, Toomey will address the press club and the various business and union groups that support the monthly speakers luncheon. But his campaign did not wait that long to respond to McGinty's charges.

Toomey's campaign sent out a statement touting Giffords' endorsement and accusing McGinty of being a rubber stamp for the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. His campaign said McGinty distorted Toomey's record on firearms legislation, saying he introduced a bill to prevent terrorists from getting guns and he voted for bills and other measures that carried stiff penalties against countries that sought to hurt U.S. jobs by flooding the market with steel and other products.

"On the same day Pat Toomey secured yet another bipartisan endorsement for his independent leadership, this time from Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly's Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, Katie McGinty showed why she would be nothing more than a rubber stamp for her party's leadership in Washington," Toomey spokesman Ted Kwong said.

The Toomey-McGinty race is one of the closest watched Senate campaigns in the nation, with more than $52 million being spent on the general and primary elections, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer story citing the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. McGinty currently has an edge in various public opinion polls, mostly because of Trump's sinking polls in his matchup against Clinton.

On Monday, McGinty again sought to link Toomey to Trump. While Toomey is traveling the state touting his stances on public safety, she said, like he is "some kind of G.I. Joe in khakis and a blazer," he has refused to answer voters' questions about whether he endorses Trump.

"It's not too much to ask a United States senator to share his opinion on this most important choice," McGinty said during her speech. "Every time Sen. Toomey responds to a question on this subject with a long, pained exhale before saying he just still needs more time to decide, we know he is full of baloney."

The election is Nov. 8.

steve.esack@mcall.com

Twitter @sesack

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