HARRISBURG — Tom Wolf was in the midst of telling a Democratic Party dinner party crowd last month how important it is for Democrats to tell voters what they stand for in this mid-term election campaign when he interrupted himself.
Despite the fact that Republican Scott Wagner, of Spring Garden Township, is burning up the campaign trail — more than campaign 600 stops, according to Wagner — the brash waste-hauling millionaire and former state senator has struggled to exploit a weakness in his opponent.
Wolf, of Mount Wolf, has consistently led independent polls by double-digits and his huge campaign cash advantage over Wagner — five-to-one, as of Sept. 17 — was somewhat unexpected. More than one-third of the $28 million Wolf has reporting raising since the start of 2017 came from labor unions, a regular target of Wagner's sharpest attacks.
Wolf points to his stewardship of the state's Medicaid expansion – income eligibility guidelines actually expanded under his Republican predecessor, Tom Corbett, but Wolf has vigorously defended the program — and winning another $1 billion in education aid, about half of what he had originally sought from lawmakers.