Pennsylvania governor race: Profiling Tom Wolf

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Tom Wolf, the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania governor, has been leading in the polls since the primary.

He has turned in an impressive performance in his first political campaign as he challenges Pennsylvania's sitting governor, Republican Tom Corbett.

Wolf said he is having the 'time of his life' on the campaign trail, talking to voters about what he would do different in Harrisburg.

"There is a sense of crisis, and a shared sense of crisis that transcends party identification in Harrisburg. And I think right now people are looking for change. They're looking for something a little more transformational," Wolf said.

Wolf plans to raise more money for education by increasing the state income tax for wealthier Pennsylvanians, with the cut-off for single-filers being somewhere between $70,000 and $90,000.

But he would not tell us how much more.

"Things aren't working, and so I don't know what I'm going to be confronting when I get to Harrisburg, and I certainly don't want to mislead people by being dishonest," Wolf said.

Wolf, who is the former Revenue Secretary under Governor Rendell, says that - plus a 5% severance tax for natural gas companies - will allow him to lower property taxes, and even up the funding of school districts across the state.

Wolf would also eliminate the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.

"I believe in local control. We have local control in every school district in Pennsylvania but Philadelphia. This is not a knock on the good people in the SRC, I think they are trying to do the best they can in a tough situation," Wolf said.

If Wolf wins on Election Day, he would be the first person to deny a Pennsylvania governor a second term since the state began allowing governors to run for a second term back in 1968.

Wolf says he is not taking anything for granted.