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Gov. Wolf names Isenhour to succeed chief of staff McGinty

“We worked together to expand Medicaid, eliminate the unfair and costly SNAP asset test, save the children’s health insurance program in Pennsylvania, and implement key government reforms like a gift ban”, said Governor Tom Wolf. Democrats are optimistic about a victory over Toomey in Pennsylvania, where Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a four-to-three margin.

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An administration aide said McGinty was not in her office on Wednesday, and she did not respond to inquiries through email.

Franklin & Marshall College pollster Terry Madonna told WHYY’s Dave Davies that for the past several decades in Pennsylvania, chiefs of staff to the governor have tended to be “low-key, inside the Harrisburg community, not much given to public appearances”.

The 52-year-old Philadelphia native had been in Wolf’s inner circle since he beat her in the 2014 gubernatorial primary.

McGinty, who lives the Chester County section of Wayne, has not publicly disclosed her plans and stopped short of doing so Thursday. McGintyn resigned her position Wednesday and is expected to run for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate next year. After defeating former Gov. Tom Corbett in November, Mr. Wolf named Ms. McGinty his chief of staff. Unlike Specter, she’s not a former Republican with a record that would provide Sestak plenty of damaging material in a Democratic primary.

The governor also said he does not believe McGinty’s exit will set back talks, which have yielded little progress to date.

“She has done a tremendous job since the transition in meeting with legislators, meeting with the leaders, and working through issues and problems”, said Steve Miskin, spokesman for the House GOP majority leader.

She gravitated to the political side in the mid-1990s.

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Isenhour served as a national political director for the Washington, D.C.-based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, and from 1999 to 2003, she served as executive director of the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee. He built a reputation as a gritty, aggressive campaigner who has garnered good will from rank-and-file Democrats after becoming a regular on the local Democratic Party event circuit in recent years. “She helped organize this office”.

McGinty resigns as Wolf chief of staff, expected to run for Senate | PhillyVoice