PA Governor's Race 2018: Wolf, Wagner Already Warring

The answer is Tom Wolf or Scott Wagner.

The question is “Who will be Pennsylvania’s governor come January?” That the answer came first is a construct that undoubtedly would garner the approval of “Jeopardy” host Alex Trebek, who will moderate the only scheduled debate between the two men on Oct. 1 in Hershey.

Both were successful businessmen from York County before entering politics.Wolf owned the Wolf Organization, a distributor of lumber and other building products. Wagner founded the waste management and recycling company Penn Waste and also owns a trucking company, KBS Trucks.

But the similarities between the two men end with them being millionaires from the same part of the state.

Wolf, 69, the Democratic incumbent, is soft-spoken and unassuming, a friend of organized labor. The Republican Wagner, 63, a former state senator, is a conservative cut from Trump fabric who has voted to relax oil and gas drilling regulations and restrict local governments from passing stronger gun control laws.

Polls suggest Wolf has little to worry about. Those taken thus far have the incumbent with double-digit leads; the most recent one, a Franklin & Marshall College poll released Aug. 30, showed Wolf ahead of Wagner, 52 percent to 35 percent, with 12 percent of those surveyed undecided.

But Pennsylvania voters can surprise on Election Day. Donald Trump stunningly captured the state in the 2016 election, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate to collect Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes since George H.W. Bush in 1988. So rest assured that Wolf is taking nothing for granted.

Wolf has already aired campaign commercials asserting that Wagner supported a billion-dollar cut in state education funding, backed a plan to tax seniors’ retirement income and referred to baby boomers as “the greediest generation.”

Wagner has fired back with his own commercials contending that Wolf plans a huge tax increase if re-elected and plans drastic cuts in education funding to rural school districts.

Expect the two candidates to spend a fortune on the race in the next two months. The Wolf campaign spent more than $32 million on his 2014 gubernatorial bid, including $10 million from the candidate himself.

Wolf, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, had $15.2 million in his coffers as of the most recent campaign finance report filed in June. Wagner started the year with $5.9 million on hand, but had just $1.6 million available in June after fending off candidates Paul Mango and Laura Ellsworth in the GOP primary.

With Wolf having a decided edge in both polling and money, Wagner has considerable ground to make up to give himself a serious chance on Election Day. But stranger things have happened in Pennsylvania politics.

Just ask the president.

Wolf photo via Getty Images; Wagner photo via Pennsylvania Senate.

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