Democrat Tom Wolf is the new governor of the Keystone State. Wolf entered Election Day with an average 11.0 point edge over incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett in the latest polls, having a lead up to 21.7 points in the months leading up to the election. While Corbett was closing the gap heading into Tuesday, it was not enough to stop the momentum Wolf had in Pennsylvania. This marked an historic election in Pennsylvania's political history, as Tom Wolf made Tom Corbett the first incumbent governor in modern Pennsylvania history to lose a re-election campaign since the Pennsylvania Governor was legally allowed to run for a second term.
Wolf becomes the 47th governor of Pennsylvania and the first since 1979 to win despite not ever holding an elective office. Corbett, a former state and federal prosecutor, had exponentially low approval ratings and was unable to recover from a harsh first term that left him with a ton of ground to make up in the polls. According to ABC News in Philadelphia, six out of every 10 voters under the age of 50 voted for Tom Wolf, and in a poll of 1,623 voters, most of Corbett's support came from the central portion of Pennsylvania, while Wolf had the edge in the suburbs and cities.
When Wolf officially takes office in January, he will be opposed by a Republican-dominated state legislature, along with a budget deficit that continues to grow, with the hopes of following through on his goal to better fund public education throughout the state of Pennsylvania.
