Democrat Tom Wolf Wins Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Election Over Incumbent Tom Corbett

Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania's revenue secretary, ousted Republican incumbent Tom Corbett to become governor on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Wolf was heavily favored to win going into the election. He polled in the double digits over the unpopular Corbett and political number crunchers FiveThirtyEight gave Wolf a 99 percent chance of winning the race.

Wolf highlighted his strong record as a fiscal manager from his stint as secretary of revenue of Pennsylvania and as the CEO of his family-owned business, the Wolf Organization Inc. Wolf poured nearly $10 million of his own money into his gubernatorial campaign.

Corbett is the first governor of the Quaker State ever to lose re-election, according to Reuters. Corbett was most highly criticized by voters for cuts in education funding, which left some school principals without “someone to answer the phones for them,” according to Elizabeth Stegner, a member of the Democratic Committee of West Philadelphia.

Wolf claimed Corbett cut education by about $1 billion, but pro-Corbett ads said he actually raised funding by $1.5 billion. The former refers to cuts in 2011-2012 and the latter refers to Corbett’s increase in pensions for school employees, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian.

President Barack Obama campaigned in Pennsylvania on behalf of Wolf. It was one of five states expected to flip from Republicans to Democrats in gubernatorial races Tuesday, and if FiveThirtyEight projections are correct, Republicans will still hold the majority of gubernatorial seats in the country, 26-23 over Democrats, with one independent governor.