PA-PPP: Wolf up 25

[windjammer]

What's the most an incumbent governor has ever lost by?

Lief, his loss would be historic!!! No PA governor has ever been defeated.

[DemPGH]

It could well be an Ohio 2006 margin (61-37 or something); at this point the only thing that could really damage Wolf would be a major scandal or something like that.

As to Ds voting for Corbett, a lot of it probably will not pan out, but in the rural areas for instance there are not only conservative Ds (particularly on social issues and guns - big NRA state), but people registered D really in name only. It's for local reasons, someone they know running for school board or supervisor of roads or something. There aren't that many, but they are there.

The last nail in Corbett's political crypt was making too many of the elderly angry, IMO. I mean he has everyone else furious, but losing too many elderly in Pennsylvania usually spells doom. In this case, it looks pretty bad.

[Landslide Lyndon]

RI 1990: GOP incumbent Ed DiPrete was crushed 74/26, not a typo. P

Wow! What did that guy do? Was he caught on film beating puppies and then drinking their blood?

[TX Conservative Dem]

Corbett has 5 months to turn this around and 2014 is gonna be a GOP year, so you know that he'll tie Wolf to Obama.

[Free Bird]

Santorum, to his credit, was never this far behind. Wolf could cross 60.

I wouldn't care. Wolf seems much more sensible and Libertarian than Corbett. The difference is Corbett has no idea of what he's doing. Santorum as least has principles, if not bad ones.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

What's the most an incumbent governor has ever lost by?

Lief, his loss would be historic!!! No PA governor has ever been defeated.

Actually, no. While it has not happened in modern times, incumbent governors of PA have been defeated before.

1820: Incumbent William Findlay was defeated by Joseph Hiester.
1835: Incumbent George Wolf was defeated by Joseph Ritner.
1838: Incumbent Joseph Ritner was defeated by David Porter.
1851: Incumbent William F. Johnston was defeated by William Bigler.
1854: Incumbent William Bigler was defeated by James Pollock.

It is also worth noting that from 1874-1968, PA governors were not allowed to serve consecutive terms, so while part of the reason we haven't seen an incumbent defeated since 1854 is because PA has had governors who were seen as good by the people of PA, the other part of the reason that the last time an incumbent was defeated was back in 1854 was indeed because of the fact that defeating an incumbent was impossible for nearly a century in PA because incumbents could not legally run for consecutive terms.

So, in short, Corbett's loss wouldn't be historic. It would be historic if we only look back 159 years, but if we look back further, we can find a total of 5 instances where incumbent governors of PA were defeated when they attempted to run for re-election.

[Bojack Horseman]

Conservative-leaning ElectionProjection.com has this one Safe D. Democrats need to take 10 seats to win the House and 3 seats to win the Senate. Any chance that when Corbett goes down in flames that the Legislature might flip as well?