The Almanac of American Politics Profiles Gov. Tom Wolf
Pennsylvanians elected Democrat Tom Wolf, a wealthy latecomer to politics, as their governor in 2014, shattering Pennsylvania’s rigid, post-World War II pattern of the two parties trading off the governorship every eight years. Despite tortured budget battles in his first three years, Wolf won by an even larger margin in 2018.
Born in York and raised in Mount Wolf — named for his great-great-grandfather — Wolf earned degrees from Dartmouth College, the University of London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During that time, he interrupted his studies to join the Peace Corps, serving two years in a village in India. After graduation, Wolf went to work for the family business, initially employed as a forklift operator at the Wolf Organization, a cabinet and building-materials company.
In 1985, Wolf and two cousins bought the company and more than doubled its size. After selling the company to a private-equity firm in 2006, Wolf was tapped by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell to be state revenue secretary in 2007 and 2008. Wolf intended to mount a campaign for governor to succeed Rendell, who was term-limited, but when the family business was on the brink of bankruptcy and collapse, Wolf abandoned the campaign, repurchased the company and restored it to solvency. He stepped down as CEO in 2013 to focus on his 2014 bid for governor, targeting first-term Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who was saddled with low approval ratings.
Democratic Rep. Allyson Schwartz was anointed the early frontrunner in the primary, and state Treasurer Rob McCord and former state Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty ran as well. But Wolf poured $10 million of his own money into the race, allowing him to blanket the airwaves from January 2014 until the May primary, which Wolf won easily with 58 percent of the vote. (Wolf later tapped McGinty as his chief of staff.) In the general, Wolf had the air and campaign strategy of an incumbent, bolstered by double-digit leads in the polls. Corbett touted his tax cuts and his efforts to reduce the size of government, rein in spending and bring businesses back to Pennsylvania.
But Wolf hammered away at weak job growth under Corbett and accused him of slashing school funding. Wolf said that, unlike Corbett, he would raise taxes on the fast-growing natural gas industry. Scrutiny of Corbett’s role as attorney general in the investigation of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on accusations of child molestation became another albatross for the incumbent. Wolf won the high-spending race with 55 percent of the vote.
https://www.politicspa.com/the-almanac-of-american-politics-profiles-gov-tom-wolf/91956/
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