June 14, 2016 12:34 PM UTC

Uh-Oh, Trump; Hillary Picks Up Notable Republican Endorsement

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As The Hill reports:

A former Republican senator is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after the mass shooting in Orlando, citing her support for gun control.

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) called for universal background checks on all gun sales and an assault weapons ban Monday in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

“I can’t believe I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, but I am,” said Pressler, who spoke with The Hill on Monday after endorsing Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a statement issued over the weekend.

“This morning, I woke up and told my wife, ‘Did I really do that?’ ” he said. “But I did.

“If someone had told me 10 years ago I would do this, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

Pressler, a moderate Republican who served three terms in the Senate before losing his seat to Democrat Tim Johnson in 1997, said he believes voting for Clinton is the “responsible thing to do.”

Will this be the start of a trend, or is Hillary’s endorsement from a former Republican Senator more oddity than possibility? It is certainly easier — from a political perspective — to make a blunt declaration like this when you are not a sitting elected official or a candidate seeking office, but sometimes it doesn’t take much to open the floodgates.