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Seeking an edge in tight races, Republicans seize on Clinton email probe

WASHINGTON - For months, Republicans have faced a barrage of questions about Donald Trump. Now, in the campaign's final days, they are trying to turn the tables, thanks to the FBI's renewed look at emails tied to Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.

WASHINGTON - For months, Republicans have faced a barrage of questions about Donald Trump.

Now, in the campaign's final days, they are trying to turn the tables, thanks to the FBI's renewed look at emails tied to Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Brian Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County Republican running for Congress, have both seized on the controversy's new life.

The furor returned Friday when FBI Director James Comey notified lawmakers that the agency - in the course of another investigation into the husband of a close Clinton aide - had come across a new batch of messages that might be relevant to its previously closed examination of the private email server Clinton used as secretary of state.

Republicans pounced.

Nationally, Republicans' Senate campaign arm launched a web site Wednesday slamming Democrats in key contests for "endorsing a candidate under FBI investigation."

New polls suggest the revived debate is having little effect on most voters, but Republicans are clinging to hope that even a small dip in Clinton's margin might provide an edge in Congressional races going down to the wire.

At the very least, it has given them a reprieve from taking fire over Trump.

"It's a better conversation for Republicans overall, no matter what state you're in," said Nachama Soloveichik, a GOP consultant advising Toomey.

Pennsylvania's Senate race is one of six expected to determine control of the chamber - and with less than a week to go, three polls out Wednesday gave Democrat Katie McGinty leads of between three and six percentage points, suggesting a measurable but not insurmountable, lead.

Toomey has continued lobbing attacks and blitzing the state with campaign events, and started citing the Clinton email controversy.

He has tried to link the story to a long-running fight in which Pennsylvania Republicans have sued for access to McGinty's emails during her tenure as Gov. Wolf's chief of staff. They claim Wolf has stalled the release.

"Hillary Clinton is hilariously insisting on greater transparency," Toomey said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "Where's the transparency for Katie McGinty's emails?"

McGinty has previously told reporters she favors transparency with her state emails, but that the fight is between Wolf and the GOP.

The state has turned over 4,500 pages of public records related to her tenure. but the GOP says it is waiting for thousands of additional emails.

McGinty spokesman Sean Coit said Toomey is grasping for "any issue possible to distract voters and the press from the fact that Pat Toomey is the first Pennsylvania Senate candidate in modern history, and possibly ever, to refuse to tell his constituents whom he supports for president."

And while assailing McGinty over Clinton's troubles, Toomey still won't say if he will support Trump.

"I haven't decided yet," he told The Inquirer Wednesday. Will reveal his decision by Tuesday? "I don't know."

McGinty has endorsed Clinton and has not wavered, even as the email fight came back into the public eye.

In the Bucks-based U.S. House race, a Fitzpatrick release asked if Democratic state Sen. Steve Santarsiero was "willing to show independence and speak out his party's nominee?"

Santarsiero's camp responded by turning the attention back toward Trump, who Fitzpatrick once praised before later saying he couldn't vote for the GOP nominee.

"One person running for president is qualified to lead our country and it's not the man Brian told voters we should trust with our nuclear codes," said Santarsiero spokesman Eric Goldman.

(Fitzpatrick told National Journal Tuesday he is still contemplating who to support for president.)

While Republicans have smiled upon the new development, analysts and pollsters said they saw no major impact.

"Anything that takes points off Hillary Clinton makes it a little more difficult for Democrats down ticket to win," said Democratic strategist Mark Mellman, "but there's not really a lot of evidence to suggest this is taking anything off of Clinton."

Indeed, a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday - and conducted days after the email story made headlines - found that only 4 percent of likely voters in Pennsylvania said the development would affect their votes.

With several key Senate races polling within a few percentage points, though, even a small impact in one state might swing control of the chamber, said Daniel F. McElhatton, a Democratic consultant from Philadelphia.

The story could energize Trump voters who feared the election was slipping away, helping turnout, said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican strategist from Harrisburg.

On the flip side, Democratic analyst Larry Ceisler said the only way the controversy might affect McGinty is if the renewed questions about Clinton's honesty discourages left-leaning voters wavering on the former secretary of state.

jtamari@phillynews.com

@JonathanTamari

www.philly.com/capitolinq