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DAILY RECORD / SUNDAY NEWS SUBMITTED George and Mary Jane Leader pose with their sons, Frederick, left, and Michael, at Leader's inauguration as Pennsylvania's governor.

George M. Leader was basically a political unknown outside of York County before he ran for governor in 1954, according to coverage from Time magazine and The Associated Press at the time.

But his intense campaigning, which included the use of TV and pollsters, put him in the governor's office.

"That anchor and pride of Republicanism, the great and prosperous state of Pennsylvania, went Democratic," a 1954 Time magazine article said.

Leader also won his home county that year although in those days, that wasn't an upset. The Democratic nominees won York County in the 1950 and 1958 gubernatorial elections, too.

This election, another York County resident is on the ballot for governor, as Democrat Tom Wolf of Mount Wolf is challenging Republican Gov. Tom Corbett of Allegheny County. The election is Tuesday.

Wolf doesn't need to win his home county to win the state. In recent years, the general goal for Democrats has been for their statewide candidates to get at least 40 percent of the vote in York County and rely on big margins of victory in other areas, such as Philadelphia.

The York County area was friendlier for Democrats in Leader's day.

Leader, who died in May 2013, grew up on a poultry farm and was the son of a state senator. He got elected to his father's seat in 1950, and he ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 1952. Despite his political background, a Time magazine article in November 1954 described Leader as "a young man whom few outside of his home York County had ever heard of until eight months ago."

Leader got the Democratic nomination for governor in 1954, defeating a Democrat from western Pennsylvania.

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How Democrat George M. Leader won Pennsylvania and York County in 1954