# Kim Ward Republican president pro tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate, the chamber's top-ranking officer, and the first woman to hold the post. She has represented the 39th district, in Westmoreland County outside Pittsburgh, since 2008, and was re-elected to the leadership post in January 2026. ## Why she's on the map The Pennsylvania Senate is the body that writes the state's education-funding formula and its school-choice statutes, and the Republican majority Ward leads is the reason those statutes have moved. In 2026 she was the largest single direct recipient of state-level political money from [[Jeff Yass]]: Students First, the political action committee Yass funds, gave $2.5 million to her campaign account and leadership PAC — roughly a tenth of its $23.5 million in reported Pennsylvania spending that year, and almost all of the portion that went straight to a candidate rather than through an intermediary committee. The routing is covered on [[Jeff Yass News Log]].