PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY Waste-hauling millionaire is GOP pick to battle Wolf

Associated Press

HARRISBURG, PA.

State senator and waste-hauling millionaire Scott Wagner won Tuesday’s three-way Republican primary contest to challenge Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, capping a personal spending spree that helped make Wagner the front-runner and the GOP’s endorsed candidate.

Wagner defeated two first-time candidates from the Pittsburgh area, Paul Mango and Laura Ellsworth, surviving weeks of Mango’s sharp-elbowed attack ads that painted Wagner as sleazy, greedy and a “deadbeat dad.”

Along the way, Wagner pumped more than $10 million of his own cash into his campaign, and he spread hundreds of thousands more around the state since last year to boost GOP committees and candidates.

John Fetterman won a five-way Democratic Party primary race for lieutenant governor, making Lt. Gov. Mike Stack the first holder of the office to lose in a primary election.

The Braddock mayor’s victory in Tuesday’s primary election means he will run on a ticket with Gov. Tom Wolf in the fall. Pennsylvania first started allowing lieutenant governors to serve a second term in the 1970s.

Braddock had made a failed bid in 2016 for the U.S. Senate.

A four-term congressman who is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta had paid little attention to his Republican rival, state Rep. Jim Christiana, during the primary campaign. Instead, he focused his attacks on the candidate he is looking to unseat in the fall, two-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

Barletta is a former small-city mayor who first got national notice for attempting to pass local laws to combat illegal immigration.

Barletta endorsed Trump for president. Trump asked Barletta to run for Senate and is expected to campaign for him.