Will Dems Be Hurt by Primary Infighting?

The Associated Press wonders if the four-way Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign — to be settled in Tuesday’s vote — has been too bruising to help the party defeat incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett in November.

It’s unclear whether the image of York businessman Tom Wolf, the Democratic front-runner going into Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary, has been tarnished by attacks that two of his three opponents unleashed in debates and TV ads in the final weeks of the campaign.

State Treasurer Rob McCord injected the race issue by questioning Wolf’s relationship with former York Mayor Charlie Robertson, who in 2002 was acquitted of murder in the death of a black woman in the 1969 race riots. Wolf said he headed Robertson’s 2001 re-election campaign but after Robertson was charged helped persuade him to abandon the campaign.

U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz sought to link the $20 million Wolf received from the sale of his family company in 2006 with subsequent layoffs. Wolf responded that the layoffs occurred after his departure, as the Wolf Organization shrank during the national recession. He said he saved other jobs when he resumed day-to-day control of the company in 2009.

Of course, those attacks appeared to have had little effect. Polls consistently give Wolf a lead of around 20 points over his rivals heading into Tuesday’s vote.