Wolf wins 2nd term as governor; Casey beats Barletta in Senate race
Associated Press
Gov. Tom Wolf, right, is greeted by minority inspector James Kinder while voting at Eagle Fire Company in Mount Wolf on Election Day.
Associated Press
Sen. Bob Casey D-Pa., left, and Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa.
HARRISBURG – Tom Wolf won a second term as Pennsylvania governor on Tuesday, beating brash Republican challenger Scott Wagner and sending the Democrat back for another four years to share power with a GOP-controlled Legislature.
Wolf has said he will continue advancing his first-term priorities, including trying to fix funding inequities in public schools and seeking to impose a severance tax on the Marcellus Shale natural gas industry. But he will be up against Republican lawmakers who fought two extended budget battles with him and blocked many of his top priorities.
Even so, Wolf’s re-election will give Democrats a seat at the table for the first time in 30 years when Pennsylvania draws a new map of congressional districts after the 2020 Census.
The incumbent ran what analysts called a conservative campaign designed to limit mistakes and take advantage of Wagner’s liabilities. Wolf refused to debate Wagner more than once, and his campaign worked to capitalize on Wagner’s penchant for eyebrow-raising off-the-cuff comments. That included advising Wolf last month to put on a catcher’s mask because “I’m going to stomp all over your face with golf spikes.”
The two candidates were studies in contrast. Wolf is soft-spoken and chooses his words carefully. When Wagner announced his candidacy, he declared, “I am going to be the next governor, take that to the bank.”
Wagner, a 63-year-old former state senator who made millions from his garbage-hauling business, mostly self-financed his campaign. He had promised to cut taxes and rein in an out-of-control state government. But he fought an unexpectedly bruising and expensive three-way primary, and spent considerable time trying to walk back previous comments he had made, including criticisms public schools and teachers.
Meanwhile, Wolf heavily outraised him, with help from labor unions that Wagner had made the target of some of his sharpest criticisms.
Wolf, 69, ran his family’s building products company for most of three decades before becoming governor in 2015, except for a short stint as Pennsylvania’s revenue secretary.
He has been a champion for liberal causes, including imposing an effective moratorium on the death penalty, defending Pennsylvania’s expansion of Medicaid under the 2010 federal health care law known as “Obamacare” and blocking legislation that would have curtailed abortion rights.
Joining Wolf as lieutenant governor will be John Fetterman, the Braddock mayor whose efforts to improve the impoverished town over the past 13 years drew national attention and made him a media darling. Fetterman beat sitting Lt. Gov. Mike Stack in a five-way Democratic primary in May.
Casey beats Barletta for third Senate term
Democrat Bob Casey has won a third U.S. Senate term from Pennsylvania, beating Republican Rep. and Donald Trump supporter Lou Barletta in a state the president won two years ago.
Casey’s victory in Tuesday’s election gives him another six-year term in office and ensures that Trump will have another swing state opponent in the closely divided Senate.
The 58-year-old son of the late former governor has now won six statewide elections, including wins in races for state treasurer and auditor general.
The race was a far cry from Pennsylvania’s record-breaking $170 million race in 2016, coming at under $40 million while control for the Senate was waged in perhaps a dozen other states.
The candidates were on opposite sides of Trump.
Barletta, 62, is one of Trump’s biggest allies on Capitol Hill and drew two presidential visits to Pennsylvania to help rally support for his candidacy.
But Barletta never gained traction against Casey, and was heavily outspent while getting virtually no outside help from GOP groups to overcome Casey’s heavy fundraising advantage and built-in recognition as a household name in Pennsylvania politics.
On the campaign trail, Casey pounded Trump’s tax-cutting law as a giveaway to the wealthy and corporations while middle-class wages stagnate. Casey opposed Trump’s immigration policies and voted against Trump’s nominees for Supreme Court while he stitched together support from liberals and his longtime allies in organized labor.
Casey also sounded alarm bells over what he framed as threats to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security under GOP-controlled Washington.
Barletta was first elected to Congress in 2010, catapulted by his efforts to combat illegal immigrants while serving as mayor the small northeastern city of Hazleton.
Trump asked Barletta to run, and Barletta campaigned on Trump’s policies and record, particularly immigration, where their views dovetailed.
But Barletta failed to reconstruct the coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats that had helped Trump become the first Republican presidential candidate to win Pennsylvania since 1988.
The final weeks of the campaign were trying for Barletta. His 18-month-old grandson, a twin, was diagnosed with cancer and his brother died. In the midst of this, Casey launched a series of statewide TV ads accusing Barletta of voting in Congress to let insurers strip coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Barletta cried foul, saying an ad featuring a woman whose twin daughters were diagnosed with cancer was particularly cruel to his family because it mirrored his grandson’s plight.
Casey apologized if the ad had caused Barletta and his family any pain. Any similarity had been unintended, Casey said, and the campaign took down the ad in the Scranton TV market. But Casey declined Barletta’s request to take down the ad in the rest of the state and his campaign said flatly that Barletta “will be held accountable” for his votes.