Nov 4, 2018 3 min read

Fifty years ago, the Pennsylvania Constitution was revised to allow governors to serve two terms, and from 1971 onward, the commonwealth fell into a comfortable, predictable pattern – one of the two major parties would hold the keys to the governor’s residence on North Front Street in Harrisburg for eight years, and then it would be traded to the other party. Pennsylvanians had not voted out a sitting governor since William Bigler in 1854.

That changed in 2014, when Republican incumbent Tom Corbett was voted out of office after a tumultuous first term. He was replaced by Democrat Tom Wolf, whose only previous experience in government had been a 19-month stint as the secretary of revenue in the administration of Ed Rendell. Despite being relatively unknown across much of the commonwealth, Wolf was able to easily overwhelm his Democratic rivals with campaign ads paid for out of his own deep pockets and the promise of being “a different kind of governor.” He then handily dispatched Corbett by a 10-point margin.

Given his slender credentials, there was reason to wonder at the outset of his administration if Wolf would be chewed up by the maw of Harrisburg and be cast aside in four years. Despite a rocky start marked by a nine-month budget standoff, Wolf has found his footing and been a competent and able steward of the commonwealth’s interests.

Wolf has restored $1 billion in funding for education, and has been a firm advocate for investing in Pre-K programs and training students in science and technology. The opioid epidemic gained force through much of Wolf’s tenure, and he has helped combat it by, among other things, expanding Medicaid and supporting a prescription drug monitoring program that can pinpoint if patients are trying to stock up on opioids from multiple doctors. Wolf has worked with the medical community to create 45 treatment centers across the commonwealth. It’s not a flashy record, but one of solid accomplishment.

Where Wolf is known for his placid and professorial demeanor, his Republican rival, former state Sen. Scott Wagner, who also hails from the York area, is much more pugilistic than Wolf. Wolf’s campaign has attempted to paint Wagner as a volcanic hothead, and Wagner played right into their hands last month when he proclaimed that he was “going to stomp all over” the governor’s face “with golf spikes” in a finger-jabbing video posted on Facebook. Wagner later apologized, but the incident underlined concerns that he does not have the temperament to be an effective chief executive for all Pennsylvanians.

Tom Wolf has earned the right to be re-elected as governor.