in Philadelphia, Wofford served as the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party from June to December 1986. In March 1987, he was appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Robert P. Casey as the state's Secretary of Labor and Industry. 1991 U.S. Senate special election victory On April 4, 1991, Pennsylvania's senior U.S. Senator, H. John Heinz III, died in an aviation accident, leaving his seat in the U.S. Senate open. By law, the Pennsylvania governor was required to appoint a replacement until a special election could be held for the seat. After considering several potential candidates, including Chrysler president and Allentown native Lee Iacocca, who turned down the job, Governor Casey appointed Wofford to the seat on May 8, 1991. He had previously considered running for office, but never thought the opportunity was quite right. He thus became the first Democrat to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate since Joe Clark left office in 1969. In the special election, held in November 1991, Wofford faced Dick Thornburgh, the former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Candidates for this special election were chosen by the party committees because the vacancy had happened too late to set up a primary. Wofford began the campaign so far behind in the polls that most pundits assumed he had no chance of winning. Indeed, at one point his own internal polls showed him losing by over 40 points. His eventual upset victory over the former governor by ten percentage points surprised many, and was later described as a turning point for the political prospects of President George H. W. Bush. Wofford's campaign was run by Paul Begala and James Carville, and their dramatic success brought them to national attention. Wofford's campaign pivoted on a promise of universal healthcare, and according to political scientist Jacob Hacker, helped propel healthcare reform into national discussion. Themes such as the economy and health care would also underlie Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential election victory. In 2015, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh complained of Wofford, "Health care as a right—you know who started that line of thinking? A guy named Harris Wofford, who was a senator from Pennsylvania." Although Clinton ultimately chose Al Gore, Wofford was a finalist for the vice presidential nomination. 1994 U.S. Senate defeat Wofford narrowly lost his 1994 bid for a full term to Republican Rep. Rick Santorum, thirty-two years his junior,