The heat is on in Pennsylvania to challenge Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf for re-election next year as two Pennsylvania Republican multi-millionaires, one a state senator and one a businessman, gear up to battle each other to earn their party’s nomination.
State Sen. Scott Wagner of York will make six campaign stops throughout Pennsylvania Wednesday and Thursday of this week, visiting small businesses across the state as he announces he is seeking his party’s nomination.
The flyover comes at the same time as Pittsburgh businessman Paul Mango begins staffing up for a likely race with two of the state’s powerhouse GOP politicos, John Brabender and David Urban, as well as top state fundraiser Nan McLaughlin.
All three men are very successful businessmen who have made millions in their careers. Their deep pockets could make the race one of the nation’s most expensive.
Mango is a West Point graduate and former paratrooper in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who came from a lower middle-class background to earn his fortune as a shareholder in one the largest consulting companies in the country.
Wolf earned his fortune by making his way up through the family building materials company, starting as a forklift operator. And Wagner owns his own waste management company.
Wolf lifted himself from political obscurity to the head of the primary pack in 2014 and into the Governor’s Residence when he contributed $10 million from his personal fortune. He used the money to flood the airwaves with positive, folksy ads that featured his family and his Jeep and it worked effectively.
Look for Wagner and Mango to try to replicate that successful formula, and look for Pennsylvania to be one of the most watched midterm races in the country.
Governing Magazine recently characterized Wolf as one the country’s 12 “most vulnerable” governors up for re-election in 2018.
Currently, Wolf’s approval rating is at 43 percent, up from his low of 40 percent after a brutal budget battle during his first year in office, but that number is a dangerous one for an elected official attempting to hold their seat.
Urban was President-elect Trump campaign’s state director in Pennsylvania during the 2016 presidential election, spearheading a win that stunned pundits and turned the state red for the first time in 28 years.
Brabender is a long-time media consultant who has crafted messages for Tom Ridge and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and Shelley Moore in West Virginia, and who was working on vice-president elect Mike Pence’s gubernatorial re-election in Indiana when Pence was tapped to be Trump’s running mate.
