Wagner On Write-in Success: 'People Are Tired Of This Old Party Establishment'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Dom Giordano talked to Scott Wagner, who won a special State Senate election in Pennsylvania's 28th District as a write-in candidate.
Click below to listen to the podcast...
Scott Wagner
Wagner said the secret to his stunning success was getting out into the community to meet voters and motivating them to amplify the campaign's message.
"We reached out to hundreds and hundreds of people. Those hundreds and hundreds of people, we asked them to spread the word about my campaign [and] we wanted to find out the important issues in our district. My victory is all about the people winning. It tells you that people are tired of this old party establishment that we have there," he stated.
And Wagner said, despite his allegiance to the Republicans, he was forced to run against the party because he didn't toe the line with the leadership.
"It was an exclusive club, and if I didn't wear my Republican uniform and speak in Republican language, I wasn't welcomed inside the building. That's happened to a lot of people…People are ready for something different. The people sent a message," Wagner said.
Wagner believes he sensed the momentum of the race swinging towards him in the final week of the campaign.
"I was starting to feel more optimistic because when the big boys, the SRCC and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, came in and started slandering me and really doing the flamethrower job on me. I started to get a sense that we were going to win. But I was shocked to see the number of write in votes, it was almost 11,000. The bottom line is the people have spoken, and the people have won," he said.
Now, Wagner's main priority is to get the Paycheck Protection Act, which would halt Pennsylvania's automatic collection of union dues for state employees, through the Senate as soon as possible.
"I would like to sit down with my 27 Senate colleagues and ask them, 'Can we get paycheck protection passed in two weeks?' I'm not talking two months or two years; I'm talking two weeks. Let's set a date. Let's get it done," he said.
