A write-in candidate winning an election is exceptionally difficult.

PENNSYLVANIA – York is a modest little city in Southern Pennsylvania not too far from Baltimore and right in the heart of Dutch country. It’s not the sort of place where political revolutions are found.
But Republican state Senate nominee Ron Miller may think differently this morning because he just lost a special election to a write-in Tea Party candidate, Scott Wagner.
“With 100 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night, write-in votes totaled 10,595, or 47.7 percent, to Miller’s 5,920, or 26.6 percent. Democrat Linda Small of New Freedom nearly edged out Miller with 5,704 votes, for 25.7 percent,” according to the York Dispatch.
Pennsylvania is a place where it can sometimes be difficult to tell the Democrats from the Republicans, at least at the state level.
Wagner, who owns a trash compactor business, ran on a typical Tea Party small-government/fiscal conservativism ticket.
He attributed his win in great part to the relentlessly negative attacks on him by the local and state GOP party establishments.  (read more with video)