Scott Wagner

Scott Wagner (2018)

Scott Richard Wagner (* 1955 in York , Pennsylvania ) is an American businessman and politician of the Republican Party . He was a member of the Pennsylvania Senate from 2014 to 2018 and was his party's candidate for the 2018 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, but was defeated by incumbent Tom Wolf .

Life

Wagner comes from York in southern Pennsylvania and grew up on a farm. He graduated from high school in 1973 and then dropped out of college early to pursue various business activities in the private sector . He later became the owner and manager of a garbage disposal company called Penn Waste . As an entrepreneur, Wagner, a Republican throughout his life , always financially supported local Republican candidates for various electoral positions. When a vacancy arose in early 2014 in the 28th constituency of the State Senate , Wagner declared his candidacy for the seat. However, he missed the nomination by the Republicans against a member of the State House of Representatives . Wagner then applied for the post using the write-in procedure. His name was not on the official ballot paper, but could be entered manually (“write in”). Thanks to his personal financial resources, he was able to be elected with 47% of the vote. He was the first candidate to be elected to the state legislature using the write-in process . He took up his mandate on April 2, 2014. In the next regular election in November 2014, he was confirmed for a full legislative period of four years. In the Pennsylvania Senate, Wagner was known as a right-wing hardliner . A few months after starting his term in office, he caused a stir with a comparison between trade unions and Adolf Hitler . He said that both the trade unions, Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler are all about power and rule. He later withdrew his statement after cross-party criticism.

In January 2017, Scott Wagner announced his candidacy for governor of Pennsylvania. In the run-up to the 2014 election , he had already considered an internal party candidate for the then incumbent Tom Corbett , whom he criticized as too moderate. In May 2018 Wagner prevailed in the Republican primary against the more moderate businessman Paul Mango . He was considered the favorite for the candidacy at an early stage, but Mango was able to catch up a bit in the last few weeks before the vote. On June 4, 2018, Wagner also resigned his mandate as State Senator in order to concentrate fully on his election campaign. Together with entrepreneur Jeff Bartos as a candidate for the post of lieutenant governor , Wagner stepped up in the election on November 6, 2018 for the incumbent governor of the Democrats , Tom Wolf , and his running mate John Fetterman . In the end, he lost the vote by a clear margin: around 40% of the voters voted for Wagner, while Wolf received a little more than 57% of the votes.

In his election campaign, Wagner presented himself as a great supporter of US President Donald Trump . In July 2018, he caused controversy at a campaign event when he described an 18-year-old student as "young and naive" after she questioned him about his denial of man-made climate change and a possible connection between his stance and campaign donations from fracking - Industry had indicated. Contrary to the knowledge widely accepted by scientists, Wagner stated that climate change was due, among other things, to the decreasing distance between the sun and the earth . In addition, the citizens of Pennsylvania would elect a governor, not a scientist. Wagner's behavior towards the student, which is often viewed as arrogant, sparked severe criticism on social media and became a topic in many US media. There were also isolated reports of the incident in Germany . Furthermore, in his election campaign Wagner calls for the removal of environmental protection requirements against fracking, an end to the moratorium on the death penalty imposed by Governor Wolf and a deregulation of the economy.

Private

Scott Wagner has been married to his wife Tracy for the second time since 2014. He has a daughter from his first marriage. His wife also brings a daughter from a previous marriage.

Web links

• Campaign site (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ About Scott Wagner , campaign website (English)
2. ↑ York County Senator Scott Wagner backtracks from Hitler reference , witf.com, June 6, 2014 (English)
3. ↑ York Businessmen Wolf & Wagner Each Mulls Run Against Corbett , Politicspa.com, November 14, 2012 (English)
4. ↑ Scott Wagner to resign from Senate to focus on bid to be Pa.'s next governor , PennLive, May 31, 2018 (English)
5. ^ A Politician Called Her 'Young and Naïve.' Now She's Striking Back. , The New York Times , July 25, 2018 (English)
6. ↑ Gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner called this 18-year-old 'young and naive' when she asked him about climate change , Philly Voice, July 25, 2018 (English)
7. ↑ 18-year-old pegs politicians to his climate lies, he calls them "young and naive" , Bento, July 22, 2018