Gov. Tom Wolf meets with PennLive editorial board

Gov. Tom Wolf has his first meeting with the PennLive Editorial Board since he ran for office in 2014. March 7, 2017. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com

(Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive)

Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

Donald Trump made history last November when he became the first Republican to snap a four-decade Democratic stranglehold on Pennsylvania's presidential vote.

Trump won in traditionally Democratic strongholds in the southwest and northeast. And he put up a serious fight in the Philadelphia suburbs, eating into rival Hillary Clinton's margins on his way to a win in a key electoral battleground.

A new Franklin & Marshall poll out this morning contains some good news for Gov. Tom Wolf as he heads into a bruising 2018 re-election campaign. But the Democrat still has his work cut out for him.

Forty-one percent of voters in the poll say Wolf is doing a "good" or "excellent" job as he heads into the midway point of the third year in office, while 52 percent who say he's doing a "fair" or "poor" job.

Those numbers are an improvement over a February Franklin & Marshall canvass. And they're in line with a recent Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll, giving Wolf a 40 percent approval rating.

Those close to Wolf say they like the trend lines, arguing that he's gaining ground, and that, as voters begin tuning into the race, and Wolf starts telling his story, the numbers will only improve.

And that is true. But it's also true that Wolf has had a rough ride, and his administration was often its own worst enemy on matters of politics and policy.

While in office, Wolf has seen Democratic ranks in the state House and Senate shrink the historic levels, at first hamstringing, and then ultimately forcing him to abandon, the state sales and income tax hikes he says are needed to get the state onto sound fiscal footing.

Wolf has also struggled to enact one of his biggest 2014 campaign promises: a proposed severance tax on natural gas drillers.

But with the state facing a more than $1 billion deficit at the end of current fiscal year and an ever-ballooning pension debt, the Democratic administration -- and Republicans who control the General Assembly -- will be challenged to find the cash to make ends meet.

One Republican, in the Trump mold, state Sen. Scott Wagner, who like Wolf, hails from York County, has already declared his 2018 candidacy. Western Pennsylvania businessman Paul Mango is expected to follow suit later this month.

A third man, state House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, who is deeply conservative, is strongly considering a bid for the top spot.

With that topography, the 2018 campaign will hardly be a cake-walk.

But, first, the polling good news: Wolf's approval ratings in the new Franklin & Marshall poll are at their highest levels since March 2015, when they clocked in at 38 percent.

Franklin & Marshall pollster G. Terry Madonna said Wolf's performance was similar to former Gov. Ed Rendell's approval rating at a similar point during his first term.

Back then, the Philadelphia Democrat (like Wolf is now) was fresh off a series of bruising budget battles with a Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Even still, Rendell scored legislative wins, going on to handily win re-election in 2006 against former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann, a political neophyte.

Wolf's job-performance is also better than former Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's at the same point during his lone term in office, Madonna said.

Corbett was spared some protracted budget fights. But he was buffeted by criticism over deep cuts to K-12 and higher education spending and other state programs as he struggled to close a budget deficit.

"Wolf had a very tough first year," Madonna said, referring to the nine-month-long fight over Wolf's first budget proposal in 2015. "There isn't any doubt that he had a very aggressive agenda."

With his defeat of Corbett in 2014, Wolf broke a six-decade-old tradition of Democrats and Republicans swapping control of the Governor's Office every eight years.

But according to University of Virginia political analysts Geoffrey Skelley and Kyle Kondik, it's still too early make a call on whether Wolf will re-establish the so-called "Eight-Year Rule" as he launches his campaign.

As a matter of courtesy, because incumbents tend to start on first base, the two analysts say the state leans Democrat.

But everything else is up for grabs.

And now the bad news. And there's enough to go around.

The poll of 639 registered voters, which was conducted from May 1-7 with a margin of error of 4.9 percent, reveals issues across broad swaths of the electorate.

First, the view from 30,000 feet.

Despite boasting a majority of Democratic respondents, those voters are suffering an enthusiasm gap when it comes to Wolf.

Overall, more Republicans (69 percent) disapprove of Wolf than do Democrats who approve of him (55 percent).

Wolf suffers among both men (56-38 percent, give him poor marks) and, more narrowly, among women (49-42 percent, give him poor marks).

Voters across age groups similarly give him poor marks, with disdain running highest among respondents aged 55 and older (55-42 percent). Voters aged 35 and younger say, 49-36 percent, that Wolf has done a bad job. But there's also the most room to grow there, with 15 percent of those voters undecided.

Voters more inclined to support Trump - those with some college or a high school diploma or less - disapproved of Wolf's job performance. Those with a college degree were supportive, the poll showed.

Now the geography:

In southwestern and northeastern Pennsylvania, where Trump romped to become the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state in three decades, 56 and 70 percent of voters respectively give Wolf poor marks.

In central Pennsylvania, 55 percent of respondents disapproved of Wolf; while 66 percent of voters in northwestern Pennsylvania responded the same way.

But even in areas of the state that went for Clinton or strongly supported her, Wolf finds himself in trouble or, at minimum, in a situation where he'll have to build up his base.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters in Philadelphia disapprove of his job performance, the poll showed.

The oases?

That'd be the Philadelphia suburbs, where Clinton narrowly prevailed. In the southeast, 50 percent of respondents approve of Wolf's job performance. Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) of Allegheny County voters say the same, the poll showed.

Wolf's campaign manager, Jeffrey Sheridan, downplayed the results, pointing out that Wolf inherited a state government suffering from big deficits and deep cuts to education. Wolf restored the cuts and is righting the ship of state, he argued.

As he heads out onto the campaign trail, Wolf will "continue to talk about his priorities and he knows the people of Pennsylvania share those priorities," Sheridan said.

Republicans, meanwhile, smelled blood.

"Wolf is extremely vulnerable in 2018. He has gone from America's most liberal governor to America's most angry governor -- during last year's budget negotiations -- to now being America's most ineffective governor," Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Val DiGiorgio said in a statement. "Pennsylvania voters recognize that he has no message or vision for the Commonwealth and will hold him accountable for his lack of leadership and plans to tax everything from day care to assistant living services."

The 2018 gubernatorial primary is still a year away.