Former Pa. Governor Tom Ridge: I’m Not Voting Republican This Year

Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge has voted Republican every four years since his 18th birthday. He says that streak will end in 2016.

In an opinion piece published under Ridge’s name in U.S. News and World Report today, Ridge says he cannot vote for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in November.

“My disregard for Donald Trump has been well documented by multiple media outlets over the last several months, so I won’t belabor it yet again,” Ridge writes. “Suffice to say that I am disappointed that he is our party’s nominee. With a bumper-sticker approach to policy, his bombastic tone reflects the traits of a bully, not an American president and statesman. If he cannot unite Republicans, how can he unite America? I simply cannot endorse him.”

Ridge is sticking to his word. In December he told reporters there was “not a chance” he would support Trump if he were to win the Republican nomination. He also called him an “embarrassment” to the party, and filed a different report bashing Trump in April in Politico Magazine.

In that story, Ridge contrasted the rhetoric of Trump (and Ted Cruz) with that of President George W. Bush, who had made Ridge the first director of Homeland Security after the September 11th attacks. “There are probably haters in America, but fortunately they are a small fraction of our population,” Ridge wrote. “Of greater concern is that very few Americans are familiar with Muslim history, religion or culture. It is exactly that ignorance that first Trump and now Cruz are tapping into. Rather than embrace the approach of President Bush, who in the immediate aftermath of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil chose to stand in solidarity with Muslim-Americans, Trump and Cruz exploit a baseless fear and anger directed at all Muslims for short-term political advantage.”

In the U.S. News piece today — which was also published on PennLive — Ridge writes that he won’t be voting for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, either. (You can figure he won’t be pulling the lever for Bernie Sanders if he somehow wins the Democratic nomination, too.) He says he’ll focus this efforts on getting down-ballot Republicans elected, like Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey.

Ridge was the 43rd governor of Pennsylvania, serving from 1995 to October 2001, when he left to join the Bush administration. Before being elected governor, he was a six-term Congressman, from 1983 to 1995.