Wagner wins nod of GOP panel for governor
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
HERSHEY, Pa. — House Speaker Mike Turzai suspended his campaign for governor as state Sen. Scott Wagner handily won the Republican state committee endorsement Saturday morning.
“We’ve been on a mission, but we did start late,” an emotional Mr. Turzai, whose campaign began last fall, told committee members shortly before they began considering the endorsement. “[Y]ou enter into competition and sometimes you don’t win. I’m gonna come up short. I came in second, and that’s all right.”
As Mr. Turzai spoke, a campaign aide circulated a letter from state Rep. Mark Mustio, of Moon, asking Mr. Turzai to step aside and focus on helping fellow House members. With GOP incumbents facing a number of challenges, the letter said, “We will need your help to ensure we bring back a strong House majority.”
Mr. Wagner, meanwhile, hailed the vote as “a demonstration of courage, plain and simple.” Noting that he’d been elected to the Senate as an independent candidate on a write-in ballot, the York Republican told committee members, “You voted today in support of a conservative outsider who only four years ago ran as a write-in candidate against both parties.”
Mr. Wagner warned that victory over Gov. Tom Wolf would not be easy. “Gov. Wolf and his allies want to protect the status quo, and they are going to spend tens of millions of dollars to keep us from changing,” he said. “That’s why it’s critical and important that we come together as a party and focus on the mission ahead.”
Coming into the party’s winter gathering at the Hershey Lodge, Mr. Wagner was a prohibitive favorite. He’d won five out of six straw polls held around the state, and led his rivals in fundraising as well. The departure of Mr. Turzai, a distant second-place finisher, left Mr. Wagner with a nearly clear field for the endorsement. He solidly bested Allegheny County health care consultant Paul Mango, who sought the endorsement but had committed to running without it.
Another Republican running, Pittsburgh-area attorney Laura Ellsworth, chose not to participate in the endorsement process at all.
That was an easier choice for the newcomers than for Mr. Turzai, long a pillar of the GOP. But after the vote, state party chairman Val DiGiorgio declined to criticize candidates for staying in the race. “Everybody’s free to decide,” he said.
Asked by a reporter how to square his status as an outsider with getting the approval from party insiders, Mr. Wagner suggested that he hadn’t changed — the party had. “The Senate is a different place today because relationships have been built” since his election, he said.
Jeff Bartos, who has been running for lieutenant governor as Mr. Wagner’s running mate, also won endorsement, posting a rousing victory over Lancaster County state Rep. Gordon Denlinger.
In the race for U.S. Senate, Congressman Lou Barletta, RHazelton, was uncontested for the endorsement — although Beaver state Rep. Jim Christiana is continuing to run without the party’s nod.
Also on Saturday, longtime state Rep. John Maher, RUpper St. Clair, credited with authoring the state’s open records law and the state’s first rules for lobbyists, announced that he won’t seek a 12th term this year.