Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday night won four more years in office presiding over the largest fracking state in the east, CNN reported.
Wolf won against Republican challenger Scott Wagner with the help of billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, who backed Wolf as a clean-energy advocate.
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Wolf had faced opposition from green groups who wanted him to do more on climate change, as he presides over a state that is one of the largest natural gas producers in the country due to the shale energy boom.
But Steyer’s group NextGen America sought to emphasize the work Wolf has done in his first four years to rapidly transition the Keystone State toward using more clean energy, while opposing union-busting “right-to-work” laws.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board endorsed Wolf by pointing out that many of the governor’s failures in his first term were due to “the failure of the legislature to act,” despite his failure to balance the budget amid the fracking boom.
“That the state has managed to encourage the growth of two industries, casinos and fracking, and still has to borrow to make a budget is pathetic,” the newspaper said in its endorsement last week. It added that Wolf is not the first governor in Pennsylvania who has failed to get an extraction tax on drillers passed, which would have driven up revenues.
Wolf gets props for keeping a firm handle on the state’s opioid addiction crisis by declaring it an epidemic and a state emergency, the newspaper continued, calling Wagner a “brash, pugilistic” Republican.
“We’ll take the calm one,” it said.
