Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Big GOP governor’s field could grow with Corman announcement
HARRISBURG » Jake Corman, the ranking Republican in Pennsylvania’s state Senate who is widely expected to run for governor in next year’s election, has begun inviting donors and others to an announcement next Thursday night.
The event is billed as a “special announcement” in Corman’s hometown of Bellefonte.
Corman’s entry into the race would swell an already big field of Republicans running for governor that’s double-digits deep and growing, as the party searches for a nominee to potentially succeed outgoing Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.
Corman, 57, who represents a swath of central Pennsylvania surrounding Penn State’s main campus, is the Senate’s president pro tempore and has served in the chamber since 1999 — controlled by Republicans the whole time — after taking over the seat his father held.
For weeks, Corman has been expected to enter the race, meeting with donors and the Republican congressional delegation. Corman has said he would discuss his political plans after Tuesday’s election, but neither he nor a political adviser have returned messages about it.
He has served in GOP leadership since 2009 — including as majority leader from 2015 through last
year — and is well known to party donors.
But his impending candidacy is not clearing the field of Republican rivals.
On Friday, Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg-area marketing consultant, launched a new cable TV ad campaign and state Sen. Doug Mastriano began fundraising for a gubernatorial campaign.
On Saturday, seven gubernatorial hopefuls were expected at a Tioga County Republican Party dinner, while in Delaware County, Dave White, who runs a large plumbing and HVAC firm, is formally announcing his candidacy.
The field’s best-known candidate is perhaps Lou Barletta, a former fourterm member of Congress who was the Republican nominee in his 2018 loss to Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and a prominent loyalist of former President Donald Trump.
Corman’s standing with Trump loyalists is mixed, at best.
Over the summer, Trump and his allies in the baseless quest to prove that