It’s a stunning change of direction for the Republican-controlled state Senate.

State Sen. Jake Corman, the GOP chairman of the Appropriations Committee, ousted Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi on Wednesday, ending the Delaware County Republican’s eight-year run in Senate leadership.

Corman’s ascension signals a geographic and ideological shift for the state Legislature’s upper chamber. Conservative GOP senators have wrested control from more moderate senators hailing mainly from the Philadelphia area. That’s significant for locations like Butler County with all three of its state senators, Scott E. Hutchinson, Donald C. White and Elder E. Vogel Jr., members of the right-leaning caucus.

Pileggi’s fall was swift and dramatic; just seven months ago, former Gov. Ed Rendell called Pileggi the “most powerful person in Harrisburg.”

But evidence of an internal party rift surfaced after that.

The turnabout seems consistent with a growing anti-incumbent trend, which dovetails with the widening rift between political conservatives and liberals. Rivals refuse to compromise and little business gets done for the benefit of the voters.

In the resulting gridlock, nobody succeeds, and voters from both parties take out their dissatisfaction on the incumbents.

The defeat of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is a prime example of this sentiment — his opponent, Democratic Gov.-elect Tom Wolf, campaigned primarily on an “I’m not Corbett” theme.

The leadership change sends a message that Senate Republicans won’t just lie down after Corbett lost to Wolf in the midterm election, said J. Wesley Leckrone, a political-science professor at Widener University, in a report posted on the Pennsylvania Independent website. Leckrone said Republicans still could force Wolf to consider legislation favored by conservatives.

“It’s definitely a signal from the Republican caucus in the Senate that they want to play hardball,” Leckrone said.

Although the Senate leadership has not said as much, it can be expected to draw up its own agenda rather that wait and react to whatever Wolf proposes as his legislative priorities. Already there have been hints of tit-for-tat proposals — if Wolf wants a natural gas severance tax, it’s been suggested, is he willing to concede liquor privatization in exchange?

State voters and taxpayers must hope the governor-elect, Senate and House find common ground on which to legislate. Otherwise, state government runs the risk of replaying the scenario that occurred earlier this month — a wholesale turnover of elected leadership.