Tom Smith

HARRISBURG — Tom Smith thrashed the candidate endorsed by Gov. Tom Corbett and the state Republican Party for the right to challenge Democratic Sen. Bob Casey this fall, and he now faces the task of galvanizing the party around him and persuading donors to support his campaign.

Smith’s Tuesday victory in the GOP’s five-way primary race drew millions of dollars from the fortune he made in the coal mining business, and he used it to underwrite attacks not only against the party-endorsed Steve Welch, but also against former state Rep. Sam Rohrer, who is popular with conservatives.

Welch finished third behind Rohrer, and many people were still scratching their heads Wednesday over what was viewed as Corbett’s heavy-handed and divisive approach to whipping the endorsement for Welch at the state party’s January meeting.

Smith, 64, who still lives on the family farm where he grew up in Armstrong County, said he wasn’t worried about his ability to build bridges with the party. “It’s what primaries are about, sorting things out,” he said after his Tuesday night victory party at a suburban Pittsburgh hotel. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we will all come together.”

One Smith supporter, Franklin County GOP Chairman Dwight Weidman, also predicted the party will unite in the quest to beat Casey, and said any lingering bitterness pales in comparison to some of the nastier primaries he’s seen.

Pat Toomey, Casey’s Pennsylvania colleague in the U.S. Senate, quickly endorsed Smith after sitting out the primary. Party officials also released statements of support, and Corbett telephoned Smith on Tuesday night to congratulate him.

Smith, who has never run statewide before, may have to answer questions about why he was a registered Democrat all his life, until recently. But he’s given generously for years to Republican causes and candidates — including Corbett — and helped found his own tea party-aligned group.

The NEPA Tea Party had endorsed Rohrer, but members of the northeastern Pennsylvania group were impressed with Smith’s commitment to conservatism and shouldn’t have trouble backing him, said a coordinator, Michael Lacey.

“It got a little bit personal toward Sam Rohrer toward the end,” Lacey said. “I would have preferred to not have seen that, but I don’t believe it’s a sticking point. It’s an unfortunate part of the game.”

The Democratic Party characterized Smith as a badly flawed candidate who was the product of a weak field of GOP candidates.

With 99 precincts reporting, Smith had nearly 40 percent of the vote. A review of Pennsylvania election results going back to 1926 showed that Smith’s roughly 297,000 votes were the fewest of any Republican primary winner for U.S. Senate. Most recently, Democrat Bill Lloyd received fewer than 237,000 in 1998.

A bigger challenge for Smith may be raising money from donors. The hotly contested 2010 race that Toomey won cost more than $50 million, including spending by the candidates, political parties and outside groups in the general election and the bruising Democratic Party primary in which Joe Sestak beat fifth-term Sen. Arlen Specter.