Trump won his way while having entire party against him. Toomey won by being a squish against a weak candidate. He also had the power of incumbency and local connections. This strategy is a losing one nationally.
Best thing Toomey had going FOR him was McSquinty. I HATE having to hold my nose when voting.
Toomey and Trump ran in Pennsylvania as if they were on different tickets -- and it worked. Trump won PA by getting a lot of votes from Democrats would probably would never have voted for Toomey.
The GOP should study this PA election cycle closely and take a lot of lessons from it. The results of these two races were a successful balancing act that I honestly didn't think was possible. Unbelievable as it may seem, I started to get more confident about Toomey's chances of holding his seat once he quietly distanced himself from Trump (he didn't oppose him, but instead ran his campaign as if Trump didn't exist). That told me he had a very good sense of what his constituents were thinking, even though I would have preferred to see both of these candidates on the stage together at all of Trump's rallies.