Across the Philadelphia suburbs, county leaders are tightening their budgets, and looking toward potential tax increases.
Counties are required by law to complete their budget for next year by Dec. 31. But they entered this year’s budget season facing uncertainty withfederal funding and a lack of clarity over state dollars as lawmakers remained locked in a monthslong budget impasse that ended only Wednesday when the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Gov. Josh Shapiro approved a $50.1 billion budget.
“We were preparing for more needs and less money,” said Josh Maxwell, a Democrat who chairs the Chester County Board of Commissioners. And even as Washington and Harrisburg resolved their budget woes this week, they did little to resolve concerns at the county level.
“I don’t think if the General Assembly had sent us a gold-plated demand or invitation to raise property taxes it could have been any clearer,” said Delaware County Council member Christine Ruether, a Democrat.
Counties in Pennsylvania can only increase their revenue by raising property taxes. By failing to provide additional funds for social services, county officials argued, the state had created a situation where counties would immediately or eventually have to raise property taxes.
“The people we serve … all their problems don’t suddenly go away because there’s a lack of funding to address the problem,” said Bob Harvie, a Democrat who chairs the Bucks County Board of Commissioners and is running for Congress.
“It will likely mean that this county will have to consider a tax increase because we need to meet the needs of those people.”
Bucks County has not yet released its proposed budget for 2026. But residents in Montgomery and Delaware Counties are likely facing tax increases.
Delaware County’s executive director Barbara O’Malley told the all-Democratic council last week that the county would need to increase property taxes 19% to eliminate the county’s structural deficit. A healthy financial setting, she argued, was especially important as state and federal funding streams have become less reliable.
Both budgets were crafted before the state budget was released but county officials said they wrote the documents assuming stagnant funding from the state despite inflation.
“We kept it status quo,” said Dean Dortone, Montgomery County’s chief financial officer.
Chester County officials said they’ve taken a similar approach. The county, Maxwell said, had also lookedfor budget cuts throughout the year as federal grant cancellations created uncertainty.
“We’ve been cutting all year because we know that the federal and state governments are going to be flat or less funding,” Maxwell said, but if the state continues to leave funding flat for social services it will eventually have an impact.
“Over time it’s going to mean property taxes are … going to go up more than they would have otherwise.”
Meanwhile, counties have spent the last several months backfilling for state funds that didnot come during the impasse.
In Montgomery County, officials estimated the county had spent between $40 and $50 million from budget reserves to maintain services. Chester County officials estimated the county spent $40 million, while Delaware County officials reported spending $12 million monthly until October when the county was forced to reduce payments to social services providers.
Counties expect to be reimbursedby the state for those expenses, but it’s unclear how quickly those payments will come.
Delaware County declared a state of emergency Wednesday allowing them to more quickly distribute funds to local food pantries while the organizations wait for state and federal dollars to come through.
“It’s going to take a while for the money to trickle down and in the meantime if somebody can’t get food on the table it’s an issue,” Reuther said during the county’s board meeting.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
HARRISBURG — The contentious — and, at times, bitter — Pennsylvania budget stalemate has finally ended.
Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the nearly $50.1 billion state budget Wednesday, as part of a breakthrough bipartisan deal that ends a key climate initiative and increases public school funding. Schools, counties, and social service providers will soon receive four months of withheld state payments, lapsed after the budget deadline passed at the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, providing the much-needed relief that some say will come too late.
The long-awaited budget deal involving Shapiro, House Democrats, and Senate Republicans marks the first time Pennsylvania’s state budget has topped $50 billion. State spending and revenue earnings have skyrocketed in the post-COVID-19 years due to federal cash infusions. The budget is a 4.7% increase in spending over the prior fiscal year and includes no new tax increases. Lawmakers and Shapiro agreed to tap into underutilized special funds and use the state’s surplus to address a budget shortfall, as Pennsylvania is on track to spend more than it brings in this fiscal year and in the future.
Democrats (left) stand to applaud a tax cut proposal while Republicans (right) remain seated as Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers his third budget address to a joint session in the House chambers at the State Capitol Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. Shapiro, a Democrat, will need to negotiate with a split legislature.
Both Republican and Democratic leaders celebrated the budget’s passage as a “true compromise,” noting that neither party got everything it wanted in the final deal. The spending plan includes significant energy and permitting changes cheered by Republicans and an earned-income tax credit and revisions to cyber charter funding long sought by Democrats, among other policy wins revealed Wednesday.
“Today is a good day,” Shapiro said, opening his remarks before signing the budget bills into law in the Capitol building, flanked by Democratic lawmakers.
“I would have loved to have stood here in this room with all of you on June 30, but as you know, Pennsylvania is just one of only three states in the country with a divided legislature,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said. “It requires all of us to compromise, to have tough conversations, and, ultimately, to find common ground.”
Several leaders said the budget deal approved Wednesday would not have been possible months ago, as debate had devolved into partisan finger-pointing over who was responsible for the budget deadlock and who might benefit politically from it.
Big GOP win: An end for RGGI
Among the top wins for Senate Republicans is the end of the state’s efforts to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf entered without legislative approval in 2019 and has been tied up in litigation ever since. The program has drawn the ire of Republicans, and in floor remarks Wednesday, House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R., Bedford) called it the “No. 1 issue holding Pennsylvania back from economic growth.” The 12-state program, known as RGGI, is an interstate cap-and-trade initiative that charges power plants for the amount of carbon emissions they release into the air.
House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R., Bedford) speaks on Jan. 7, 2025, on the first day of the 2025-2026 legislative session.
Ahead of a final budget deal, some Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups spoke out against ending Pennsylvania’s involvement in RGGI as a threat to the environment. In the end, most Democratic lawmakers voted in favor of the omnibus budget bill that ended the state’s pursuit to join the initiative.
House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery), a top negotiator of the budget deal, told The Inquirer on Wednesday that Democrats’ agreement to leave RGGI was part of a broader compromise to end the impasse.
“I’m one who believes there should be a price on carbon, but I recognize the reality of the situation and compromise is required,” Bradford added.
House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) speaks on the first day of the 2025-2026 legislative session.
Shapiro and Democratic leaders were able to persuade Republicans, in turn, to spend more than they had wanted to this fiscal year. That additional spending allowed Democrats to invest more in public education, a new earned-income tax credit targeted toward working Pennsylvanians, and more.
“It’s much more money than we want to spend, and it took a lot longer than we wanted, but I think it was worth the wait,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) in floor remarks Wednesday. “I am actually excited to vote for this budget.”
Dems win new funding for schools, but not mass transit
The budget deal includes more than $665 million in new funding for public schools, approximately $562 million of which would be funneled through the state’s adequacy and tax equity formulas as part of an effort to close what experts call a $4 billion “adequacy gap.“ These formulas were created last year in response to a 2023 court ruling that found Pennsylvania’s public education funding system unconstitutionally deprives students from poorer districts of an adequate and equitable education.
Senate Minority Appropriations Chair Vince Hughes (D., Philadelphia) applauded the budget agreement for its investments in public school funding, gun violence prevention, and the student-teacher stipend, among other things.
“This budget has good work in it that helps address … the issue of affordability, which sang loud and clear in the most recent election as a predominant issue that Pennsylvanians want us to address,” Hughes said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
In addition, the budget includes changes long sought by Democrats to how Pennsylvania funds and oversees its cyber charter schools. Cyber charter school leaders warned that the changes might lead to closures and mass layoffs for the virtual schools, which often serve the state’s most vulnerable populations, but they were resoundingly celebrated by Democrats and public education experts.
“We finally reformed our cyber charter school system,” Shapiro said to boisterous applause. “If a parent wants to send their child to a cyber school, that’s fine. That’s their prerogative. But we shouldn’t be overfunding them at the expense of Pennsylvania’s public schools.”
The deal, however, does not include any additional funding for mass transit, another major Democratic priority. Democrats removed mass transit from the budget negotiation table in September, after a lawsuit required SEPTA to undo its service cuts and Senate Republicans appeared unwilling to make a long-term investment in mass transit. Instead, Shapiro approved SEPTA’s use of its capital funds to help fill the budget deficit of the state’s largest mass transit agency for the next two years.
Bradford told reporters thatsecuring a long-term revenue stream for transit agencies remains a top priority for his caucus in future budgets.
Inflamed, in part, by the mass transit debate, negotiations over the budget had been stalled for months until the end of October, when Shapiro convened top legislative leaders to return to talks. The renewed budget negotiations included House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) and Ward, who are the highest-ranking officials in their respective chambers but had usually stayed out of the budget talks led by Bradford and Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana).
Counties are still hurting from the late budget
Unlike the federal government, Pennsylvania’s state government does not entirely shut down when a budget has not been approved. Lawmakers and state employees continued to be paid throughout the 135-day impasse. But the late budget had significant impacts on school districts, counties, and social service providers — all of which are awaiting billions in expected state payments that should begin flowing again soon.
The lack of state funding has required schools, counties, and service providers to cut jobs, take out expensive loans, or stop services altogether.
Over the course of the more than four-month impasse, Pennsylvania’s counties spent millions to make up for the loss of state dollars. In Montgomery County, officials estimated the county had spent between $40 million and $50 million from budget reserves to maintain services. Chester County officials estimated they spent $40 million in reserves, while Delaware County officials spent $12 million each month until October, when they had to reduce payments on some of their bills in the absence of state funding. Counties expect to be reimbursed for those expenses, but it is unclear when the reimbursements will come.
“Counties are at the breaking point, financially speaking,” said Kyle Kopko, the executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. If reimbursements are not delivered swiftly, Kopko added, it could force additional nonprofits that provide social services to shutter.
Even as county leaders were grateful for an end to the impasse, some expressed frustration over the contents of the final budget deal. The agreement, Kopko said, included a 2% cut to mental health services statewide, though he said the cut likely would not affect payments to counties. And it left other funds counties rely on to pay their bills — like 911 fees — stagnant, despite inflation.
Counties in Pennsylvania can increase their revenue only by raising property taxes. By failing to provide additional funds for social services, county officials argued Wednesday, lawmakers had created a situation in which counties would immediately or eventually have to raise property taxes.
The combination of the cuts and the failure to increase funds for public transit and other needs, Delaware County Councilmember Christine Reuther said, meantthe state had essentially passed the buck to the counties.
“They’re not solving problems. They’re not saving people from tax increases,” she said. “They’re just making somebody else do their dirty work.”
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Delaware County’s executive director is asking the all-Democratic Council to raise property taxes 19% — just days after an election centered on the county’s double-digit increase this year.
Barbara O’Malley, the county’s executive director, delivered a draft budget to council members Friday. The $340 million budget increases overall county spending by just under 6% and calls for a 19% property tax increase to ensure the county can fund all operating expenses without relying on onetime funding sources.
The increase would translate to an additional $185 annually for the average Delaware County homeowner, a spokesperson for the county said. That is the same dollar amount of this year’s increase.
“This revenue enhancement is required to close the gap and maintain our reserves at the minimum standards,” O’Malley said in her memo. “We recognize these are challenging economic times for our residents and do not make a tax enhancement recommendation lightly.”
Tax increases in future years, O’Malley said, should be minimal if the council agrees to the 19% hike.
The Delaware County Council will introduce its own budget on Dec. 3 and vote on a budget on Dec. 10. Members of the all-Democratic five-member council could reject all or parts of the executive director’s recommendations.
On Monday, the county’s budget task force, formed to allow citizen input following the latest tax increase, will present to the board.
Council Vice Chair Richard Womack said he hoped the final budget could have a smaller tax increase than 19% and would review the task force’s proposals while seeking ways to cut spending.
“The last tax increase I voted no because I felt like we did not do a significant dive to really see where we can actually make some cuts,” Womack said. “We’re doing everything possible to make sure we don’t have that type of budget tax increase again.”
County officials released the 369-page draft budget just days after voters overwhelmingly voted to reelect Womack and elect County Controller Joanne Phillips to the council Tuesday, retaining unanimous Democratic control of the board, which the party has controlled since the 2019 election.
Michael Straw, chair of the Media Borough Republican Committee, called the potential hike “unfair” to residents and criticized the county for not releasing the draft budget earlier.
“Voters, in my opinion, deserved the right to know whether their taxes were going up and spending was going to be increased, and I think that would have changed some more individuals’ minds,” Straw said.
Democrats argue the tax increases have been a necessary response to decades of underinvestment under Republicans. When Democrats took office in 2020, they say the county was facing challenges because prior leadership had gone toolong without raising taxes and had underinvested in county infrastructure and services. Democrats avoided substantially raising taxes in their early years in office, instead relying on COVID-19 relief funds.
But as those funds run out, and as inflation continues, the county is facing structural deficits that officials argue must be solved with tax increases.
“Providing stable funding for mandated services that our residents need and deserve is essential for sound government,” O’Malley said in a memo to council. “This county had minimal revenue enhancements over the last decade, necessitating these increases for the last two years.”
This year’s spending increases, O’Malley said, were due to increased court system costs, employee health benefits, and increases to the county’s SEPTA contribution and employee pay.
The need to ensure the county is financially stable, O’Malley said, was underscored by the state budget impasse, which had forced the county to curtail funding for some services while temporarily footing the bill for state-funded services.
Despite the GOP warnings, voters opted to keep Democrats in office, in some cases calling the tax increases necessary to maintain and improve county services.
“They should go up,” said Chester City voter Nicole Porter, explaining that she supports increases as long as they reinvest in parts of the community that need it most.
“If it costs a little more to get the roads fixed … I’m OK with that,” she said.
Staff writer Nate File contributed to this article.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Should last week’s election results make Brian Fitzpatrick nervous?
Bucks County Democrats think so.
The Republican lawmaker has been like Teflon in the 1st Congressional District, which includes all of Bucks County and a sliver of Montgomery County. He persistently outperforms the rest of his party and has survived blue wave after blue wave. First elected in 2016, he has remained the last Republican representing the Philadelphia suburbs in the U.S. House.
But Democrats pulled something off this year that they hadn’t done in recent memory. They won each countywide office by around 10 percentage points — the largest win margin in a decade — and for the first time installed a Democrat, Joe Khan, as the county’s next top prosecutor.
“This year was unprecedented, and sitting here a year before the midterm, you have to believe that next year is going to be unprecedented as well,” State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, who is also the county party’s chair, said Wednesday.
Eli Cousin, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicted a “perfect storm brewing for Democrats” to beat Fitzpatrick. “He and Trump’s Republican Party are deeply underwater with Bucks County voters; he has failed to do anything to address rising costs, and we will have a political juggernaut in Gov. Josh Shapiro at the top of the ticket,” Cousin said.
There are several reasons Democrats may be exhibiting some premature confidence: Despite a spike in turnout for an off-year election, far fewer voters turn out in such elections than do in midterms. Fitzpatrick is extremely well-known in Bucks, where his late brother served before he was elected to the seat. He has won each of his last three elections by double digits.
But Tuesday was a sizable pendulum swing in the bellwether. Some of the communities, like Bensalem, that drove Trump’s victory flipped back to blue.
The last time Democrats had won a sheriff’s race in the county was 2017, a year after Trump was elected the first time. That year, Democrats won by smaller margins, and a Republican incumbent easily won reelection as district attorney. The following year, Fitzpatrick came the closest he has yet to losing a race, but still won his seat by 3 percentage points.
This year’s landslide, Democrats say, is a warning sign.
“There were Democratic surges in every place that there’s a competitive congressional seat, and that should be scaring the s— out of national Republicans,” said Democratic strategist Brendan McPhilips, who managed Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign in the state and worked on both of the last Democratic presidential campaigns here.
“The Bucks County seat has always been the toughest, but it’s certainly on the table, and there’s a lot there for Bob Harvie to harness and take advantage of.”
Bucks County Democratic Commissioner Bob Harvie speaks during an Oct. 5 rally outside the Middletown Township Police Department and Administrative Offices in Langhorne.
Harvie, a high school teacher-turned-politician, leapt on the results of the election hours after races were called, putting out a statement saying, “There is undeniable hunger for change in Bucks County.”
“The mood of the country certainly is different,” Harvie said in an interview with The Inquirer on Thursday. “What you’re seeing is definitely a referendum.”
Lack of GOP concern
But Republicans don’t appear worried.
Jim Worthington, a Trump megadonor who is deeply involved in Bucks County politics, attributes GOP losses this year to a failure in mail and in-person turnout. Fitzpatrick, he said, has a track record of running robust mail voting campaigns and separating himself from the county party apparatus.
“He’s not vulnerable,” Worthington said. “No matter who they run against him, they’re going to have their hands full.”
Heather Roberts, a spokesperson for Fitzpatrick’s campaign, noted that the lawmaker won his last election by 13 points with strong support from independent voters in 2024 — a year after Democrats performed well in the county in another off-year election. She dismissed the notion that Harvie would present a serious challenge, contending the commissioner “has no money and no message” for his campaign.
Fitzpatrick is also a prolific fundraiser. He brought in $886,049 last quarter, a large amount even for an incumbent, leading Harvie, who raised $217,745.
“Bob Harvie’s not going to win this race,” said Chris Pack, spokesperson for the Defending America PAC, which is supporting Fitzpatrick. “He has no money. He’s had two dismal fundraising quarters in a row. That’s problematic.”
Pack noted Harvie’s own internal poll, reviewed by The Inquirer, showed 57% of voters were unsure how they felt about him.
“An off-off-year election is not the same as a midterm election,” Pack said, adding he thinks Fitzpatrick’s ranking as themost bipartisan member of Congress will continue to serve him well in Bucks County.
“He’s obviously had well-documented breaks on policy with the Republican caucus in D.C., so for Bob Harvie to try to say Brian Fitzpatrick is super far right, no one’s gonna buy it,” Pack said. “They haven’t bought it every single election.”
On fundraising, Harvie said he had brought in big fundraising hauls for both of his commissioner races, and said he would have the money he needed to compete.
Of the four GOP-held House districts Democrats are targeting next year in the state, Fitzpatrick’sseat is by far the safest. That raises the question: How much money and attention are Democrats willing to invest in Pennsylvania?
“Who’s the most vulnerable?” asked Chris Nicholas, a GOP consultant who grew up in Bucks County. The other three — U.S. Rep. Scott Perryand freshmanU.S. Reps. Rob Bresnahan, in the Northeast, and Ryan Mackenzie, in the Lehigh Valley — won by extremely narrow margins last year. “If you’re ranking the four races, you have Rob Bresnahan at the top and Fitzpatrick at the bottom,” Nicholas said.
National Democrats seldom invest as much to try to beat Fitzpatrick as they say they will, Nicholas said. And he pointed to 2018, a huge year for Democrats, when they had a candidate in Scott Wallace who was very well-funded, albeit far less known than Harvie, and still came up short.
Democrats see Harvie as the best shot they have had — a twice-elected commissioner, with name ID from Lower Bucks County, home to many of the district’s swing voters. And the 1st District is one of just three in the country that is held by a Republican member of Congress where Vice President Kamala Harris won last year.
And then there’s Shapiro, who Democrats think will give a boost to candidates like Harvie as he runs for reelection next year. Shapiro won the district by 20 points in 2022.
Following the playbook used by successful candidates this year, Democrats are likely to argue to voters that Fitzpatrick has done little to push back on Trump — while placing cost-of-living concerns at the feet of the Republican Party.
“A lot of people are, you know, upset with where we are as a nation,” Harvie said. “They grew up expecting that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d be able to have all the things you needed and have a good life. And that’s not happening for them.”
“The big thing Democrats throw against Republicans is you’re part and parcel of Trump and MAGA, and Fitzpatrick voted against Trump,” Nicholas said.
Over nearly 10 years in Congress, Fitzpatrick has been a rare Republican who pushes back on Trump, though often subtly. Fitzpatrick, who cochairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, was the lone Pennsylvania Republican to confirm former President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in 2020. A former FBI agent who spent a stint stationed in Ukraine, he is among the strongest voices of support for Ukraine in Congress, consistently pushing the administration to do more to aid the country as it resists a yearslong Russian invasion.
Fitzpatrick was also one of just two House Republicans to vote against Trump’s signature domestic policy package, which passed in July. He voted for an earlier version that passed the House by just one vote, which Democrats often bring up to claim Fitzpatrick defies his party only when it has no detrimental impact.
“He’s good at principled stances that ultimately do nothing,” said Tim Persico, an adviser with the Harvie campaign. “That is what has allowed him to defy gravity in the previous cycles. … Now the economy is doing badly. … People feel worse about everything, and Fitzpatrick isn’t doing anything to help with that. I think it makes it harder to defy gravity.”
Trump has endorsed every Republican running for reelection in Pennsylvania next year except Fitzpatrick. While the Bucks County lawmaker has avoided direct criticism of the president, in an appearance in Pittsburgh over the summer, Trump characterized the “no” vote on the domestic bill as a betrayal.
Fitzpatrick has faced more conservative primary challengers in the past, but no names have surfaced so far this cycle, a sign that even the more MAGA-aligned may see him as their best chance to hold onto the purple district.
Keeping his distance from Trump, and limiting Democrats’ opportunities to tie the two together, may remain Fitzpatrick’s best path forward.
“Anybody who wants to align themselves with an agenda of chaos and corruption and cruelty ought to be worried,” said Khan, Bucks County’s new district attorney-elect.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
A Navy pilot in New Jersey. A democratic socialist in New York City. Three Pennsylvania jurists who never wanted to hit the campaign trail in the first place.
The results were momentous for a party hungry for wins in President Donald Trump’s second term. But they are also likely to revive longstanding debates on how the party should present itself to the American people going into the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential race.
Should Democrats embrace a bold vision and tack left? Are left-of-center candidates with bipartisan appeal still the way to win statewide races? Or could the party simply embrace the reality of being a big-tent party?
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s elections, including the state of play for both parties’ soul-searching exercises.
Democrats gained momentum, but received no clear signs about the future of the party
The energy is clearly there.
Turnout soared on Tuesday, despite being an off-year election, and Democrats won by surprisingly large marginsup and down the ballot.
Even Montgomery County, where there were no competitive elections for county offices, saw its highest-ever off-year turnout at 50.7% of registered voters, and Democrats flipped every contested school board race.
At the top of the ticket, New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill and Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger, both U.S. representatives with national security backgrounds, ran up the scores in their gubernatorial races while portraying themselves as pragmatists.
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“There’s a new politics,” Krasner said Wednesday. “It’s pretty clear that the American people, Philadelphians, are tired of insiders who promise them things they don’t do. They’re tired of political dynasties.”
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Democratic strategist Brendan McPhillips, who has worked for progressive candidates as well as Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’ campaigns in Pennsylvania, said the party should embrace the ideological diversity of its constituencies.
“People have tried to ask this question of who represents the soul of the party, and I just think it’s a bad question,” he said. “The party is a huge tent, and last night proves you can run for Democratic office in New York City and New Jersey and Bucks County and Erie, Pa., and each of those races can look entirely different.”
Democrats made gains with Latino voters
One of the more worrying signs for Democrats in the Trump era has been the president’s increasing popularity among Latino voters.
They flipped that narrative Tuesday.
After 10 months of aggressive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids under Trump that are seen by many in the Latino community as indiscriminate and cruel, Democrats appear to have undone some of Trump’s gains in what has long been a blue constituency.
In New Jersey, the two counties where Sherrill made the biggest gains compared with Harris in the 2024 presidential election were Passaic and Hudson, both of which are more than 40% Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census.
Sherrill won Hudson by 50 percentage points, which represents a 22-point swing from Harris. And she won Passaic by 15 percentage points after Trump surprisingly carried the county with a 3-point margin in 2024.
In Philadelphia, Krasner won eight wards that the more conservative Patrick Dugan — Krasner’s opponent in both the general election and the Democratic primary — had won in their first round in May.
All were in or near the Lower Northeast, and the biggest swing came in the heavily Latino 7th Ward, which includes parts of Fairhill and Kensington. Krasner’s share of the vote there grew from 46% in the primary to 86% in the general.
It’s really hard to unseat Pennsylvania judges
Only one Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice since 1968 has failed to win a retention election, in which voters face a yes-or-no decision on whether to give incumbents new 10-year terms, rather than a choice between candidates.
Tuesday’s results will be discouraging for anyone hoping to increase that number soon.
Hoping to break liberals’ 5-2 majority on the state’s highest court, Republicans spent big in an attempt to oust three justices who were originally elected as Democrats. Democratic groups then poured in their own money to defend the incumbents.
In his third attempt to become governor, Republican Jack Ciattarelli bet big on South Jersey, the more conservative but less populous part of the Garden State.
It didn’t work.
In his 2021 campaign against Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, Ciattarelli carried Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem Counties with a combined 56.8% of the vote. Trump then went on to sweep all five counties last year.
But on Tuesday, Ciattarelli performed 8 percentage points worse in the region, giving Sherrill a narrow lead in South Jersey, where she won three of the five counties south of Camden.
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Republicans now face their own soul-searching question: How to win without Trump?
In 2024, Trump’s coattails helped Republicans win control of Congress and other elected offices across the country — including in two Pennsylvania swing districts.
With the president in his second and final term, how will the GOP win without him on the ballot?
For Jim Worthington, the Trump megadonor and owner of the Newtown Athletic Club in Bucks County, Tuesday’s results show that the GOP needs to do more work on the ground if it wants to succeed without the man who has dominated Republican politics since 2015.
Elections, he said, are “not about the policies as much they’re just turnout. Red team, blue team.”
The blue team won Tuesday, he said, because the red team didn’t do enough of the legwork needed to get its voters to cast mail ballots and to drive in-person turnout on Election Day. Worthington said the results left him concerned about Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity’s chances of unseating Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro next year.
“If we don’t get a robust vote-by-mail, paid-for program, it’s going to be very difficult, very difficult, if not impossible for Stacy Garrity to win,” Worthington said. “During this whole 2025 year when we could have been building this toward 2026, we lost a year because we didn’t do it.”
Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
The Chester County Board of Commissioners apologized to voters Wednesday after an error forced independent and third-party voters to cast provisional ballots through much of Election Day.
Speaking at their twice-monthly board meeting, Democratic Commissioners Josh Maxwell and Marian Moskowitz and Republican Commissioner Eric Roe promised to determine how the error was made and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“Know that we will look into this. We need to finish the election first,” Maxwell said.
Election officials in Chester County sent poll books to precincts that included only the names of registered Republicans and Democrats, omitting all other voters.
The error meant poll workers had no way to ensure voters not affiliated with a major party were eligible when they arrived to vote Tuesday morning. As a result, those voters cast provisional ballots until supplemental poll books were delivered to each precinct by around 3:45 in the afternoon.
Provisional ballots will be counted, but they are counted slower as election officials must first verify they were cast by an eligible voter who had not already voted.
The county left polling places open for an additional two hours Tuesday, allowing voters who arrived after 8 p.m. to cast provisional ballots. About 75,000 voters in Chester County are not registered with either party. The error likely affected far fewer people, as many voters had cast mail ballots and odd-year elections tend to have lower turnout.
To get through the day, Maxwell said, Philadelphia’s election office delivered a “truckload” of provisional ballots to the suburban county.
While some online have called for the resignation or firing of Chester County’s director of voting services, Karen Barsoum, Maxwell said discussions of personnel matters were premature.
“We have a lot of very good people who are very well-intentioned who set a very high standard for themselves,” Maxwell said, adding that the county had had to increase security for some staff members in response to online threats.
Roe and Moskowitz each thanked poll workers who managed a chaotic, and longer than normal, day at the polls.
County officials said they would work to better understand how the error occurred after they have finished tallying votes and certifying the election.
“We will be working on it,” Roe said. “We will get to the bottom of it. Accountability will come.”
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Democrats swept Delaware County Council elections for the fifth consecutive election, further solidifying their dominance in the former Republican stronghold in the suburbs.
In statements early Wednesday morning, the Democrats thanked their supporters.
“I will continue to work hard and fight for the residents in our County. I look forward to working together with all parties to make Delaware County one of the strongest counties in the Commonwealth,” Womack said in a statement.
With all but one precinct reporting Wednesday, Republican challengers Brian Burke and Liz Piazza each trailed Womack and Phillips by roughly 50,000 votes.
In a statement Wednesday, Frank Agovino, the chair of the Delaware County GOP, said it appeared local issues were a “secondary concern” for Democrats this year.
“The State wide retention initiative was uncharted waters and it feels as though Dem turnout was positively impacted. Additionally, the Unrealistic disdain for the President from the majority of Democrats was also an undeniable factor,” Agovino wrote.
Democrats have held all five seats on the Delaware County Council since 2020, when the party took control of the county for the first time since the Civil War. Democrats flipped the county as part of a national trend of suburbs shifting left, which was accelerated during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. With Tuesday’s results, they will keep their supermajority for the next two years.
In the years since Democrats took control in Delaware County, they say they have worked to enhance county services and repair infrastructure. That has included establishing a health department — Delaware County was the largest county in Pennsylvania without one at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — and de-privatizing the county prison following a series of scandals.
Last year, the county increased property taxes 23%, citing the loss of federal pandemic relief dollars and inflation driving up salaries. Republicans made that increase the base of their campaign, telling voters that the Democrats were overspending and that more tax increases were on the way.
Republicans wanted voters to give the GOP a voice on the board, even though the party wouldn’t have the majority, to push back on budgetary decisions and hold the Democrats accountable.
But in the heavily Democratic county, that message was not enough to sway the independent and Democratic voters Republicans needed to win seats. Instead, voters demonstrated continued trust in the current county leadership.
“I truly respect Richard and Joanne as members of Council and hope they will listen to the voices of our residents and help bring to light some of their concerns,” Piazza said in a statement Wednesday.
On Election Day, Donald and Esther Newton, a Chester couple who have been married for more than 55 years, said they believed it was about time their city received more care and investment through property taxes.
“Our infrastructure needs to be fixed, and that takes money,” Esther Newton said.
Democrats swept all countywide races Tuesday.District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, who was among the first Democrats to win countywide office in Delaware County, won a seat on Delaware County Court. He will have to step down from his current role to take the seat.
Staff writer Nate File contributed to this article.
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Bucks County voters on Tuesday did what protest and legal action could not, halting a controversial sheriff’s office alliance with ICE by electing a Democrat who has pledged to end the partnership.
Sheriff-elect Danny Ceisler said Wednesday that he will issue a moratorium barring deputies’ cooperation with ICE on his first day in office. From there, he said, he will figure out how to disentangle the sheriff’s office from the agreement signed by his predecessor.
Ceisler beat incumbent Republican Fred Harran by more than 10% of the vote in unofficial returns.
Ceisler and a cadre of immigration activists ― who saw an ACLU-led lawsuit falter ― had portrayed the election as the last chance to kill the affiliation, after a Bucks judge ruled last month that it had been legally implemented and could proceed.
Army veteran Danny Ceisler won the hotly contested Bucks County sheriff race Tuesday night.
Harran, who led the Bensalem Police Department before being elected sheriff four years ago, said Wednesday that Ceisler will “have to answer for a person who becomes victimized by an individual that should have been deported. And he’ll have to sleep with that, and it’ll be on his head, not mine.“
His said his plans around the program had been misrepresented.
“Everyone knows my intentions. It was never making car stops on people who were dark-colored. My career speaks for itself in terms of my partnerships with the community.”
He had staunchly defended his decision to assist ICE, insisting it would make residents safer and even potentially bring new funding and police equipment to the county.
Ceisler called immigration the single biggest issue in this election.
“My goal was to provide an alternative which was a no-nonsense, reasonable approach to public safety,” Ceisler said Wednesday, noting that it was now “my responsibility to deliver on that.”
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment.
The partnership, which recently became active after months of planning, provoked backlash, including the lawsuit, public demonstrations outside the courthouse, and a repudiation by the Democratic-led Bucks County Board of Commissioners.
Nationally, only a few police agencies that signed on with ICE have dropped out of those agreements.
Ceisler’s victory was part of a Democratic sweep of county positions in a critical swing county that narrowly voted to elect President Donald Trump last year.
“I am walking on air,” said Laura Rose, a leader of Bucks County Indivisible, which supports immigrants and progressive causes. “Bucks County voters soundly rejected Sheriff Harran and his plan to turn county deputies into de facto ICE agents.”
In the spring, Harran and ICE officials signed what is called a 287(g) agreement, named for a section of a 1996 immigration law. It enables local police to undergo ICE training, then assist the agency in identifying, arresting, and deporting immigrants.
“Ceisler’s victory proves what we’ve always known ― 287(g) agreements don’t make us safer, they divide our community,” said Diana Robinson, co-executive director of Make the Road Pennsylvania, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The agreement with ICE “put Bucks County at risk,” and the election showed that “voters reject fear-based policies,” she said Wednesday.
Robinson and other opponents insist that turning local officers into immigration agents breaks community trust with the police and puts municipal taxpayers at risk of paying big legal settlements. ICE officials, however, say the program helps protect American communities, a force-multiplier that adds important staff strength to an agency workforce that numbers about 20,000 nationwide.
The number of participating police agencies has soared under Trump, with ICE having signed 1,135 agreements in 40 states as of Wednesday. Seven states, including New Jersey and Delaware, bar the agreements by law or policy.
The number of new agreements increases almost every day, and Trump has pushed hard for greater local involvement. On his first day in office he directed the Department of Homeland Security to authorize local police to “perform the functions of immigration officers” to “the maximum extent permitted by law.”
Shortly before the government shutdown, ICE was poised to begin backing its recruitment efforts with money, announcing that it would reimburse cooperating police agencies for costs that previously had been borne by local departments and taxpayers.
But activists focused on the difference between what Harran said he intended to do and the much broader powers conferred within the agreement with ICE.
Harran signed up for the “Task Force Model,” the most far-reaching of the three types of 287(g) agreements. It allows local police to challenge people on the streets about their immigration status and arrest them for violations.
Harran said his deputies would not do that. Instead, he said, they would electronically check the immigration status of people who have contact with the sheriff’s office because of alleged criminal offenses. Those found to be in the country illegally would be turned over or transported to ICE, if the federal agency desires, he said.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Erica Deuso will be Pennsylvanias first openly transgender mayor. She won Tuesday’s contest to lead Downingtown after a campaign focused on bread-and-butter local issues in the face of attacks to her identity.
The longtime Democratic advocate who works in management at a pharmaceutical company earned 64% of the vote as of Wednesday morning defeating Republican Rich Bryant who had 35% of the vote to serve as the next mayor of Downingtown, a Chester County borough of roughly 8,000 people.
“Voters chose hope, decency, and a community where every neighbor matters,” Deuso said in a statement at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. “I am honored to be elected as Pennsylvania’s first openly transgender mayor. I carry that responsibility with care and with purpose.”
Deuso joins a small but growing rank of transgender officials in Pennsylvania and nationwide. There are 52 out transgender elected officials across the United States and three in Pennsylvania, all who govern at the local level , according to the Victory Institute, the research arm of the Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ+ candidates and backed Deuso.
While her gender identity attracted attention, and online vitriol, Deuso’s campaign didn’t dwell on it. Instead she prioritized public safety, sustainable growth and community in the historic borough now home to Victory Brewing.
She ran with the support of the borough’s last two mayors, Democrats Phil Dague and County Commissioner Josh Maxwell.
Bryant, a retired cybersecurity expert, argued he was better experienced for the job, which primarily leads the borough police department. But Bryant faced accusations of bigotry as Deuso posted screenshots online of her opponentmaking misogynistic and transphobic remarks on X, (Bryant said 90% of the posts were AI-generated,but offered no proof.)
In a statement, Bryant congratulated Deuso and pledged to continue working to serve the community.
“To those who voted differently, I respect your decision and share your hope for a stronger, safer, and more united Downingtown. I will continue to serve, to listen, and to advocate for responsible growth, fiscal transparency, and accountable local leadership,” he said.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Democrats swept two law enforcement races in Bucks County, ousting the incumbents and signalingthe swing county has soured on President Donald Trump just a year after voting for him.
Democrat Danny Ceisler, an Army veteran who held a public safety role in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, led Republican Sheriff Fred Harran by 12 percentage points with all precincts reporting Wednesday morning. The sheriff race centered on Harran’s controversial decision to partner his agency with ICE as Trump ramps up immigration enforcement nationwide.
And former Bucks County Solicitor Joe Khan led Republican District Attorney Jen Schorn by eight percentage points. Democrats believe Khan is the first member of their party to ever be elected to the office.
Bucks County Democrats declared victory just after midnight Wednesday morning — sweeping every countywide race. The victories came in what appeared to be a blue wave election as voters rejected Republican candidates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia.
“What’s going on with our federal government is not normal, and voters saw that creeping into local offices, and they overwhelmingly rejected it,” Ceisler said Wednesday. “Bucks County doesn’t let extremism come inside.”
The hotly contested Bucks County races centered on some of the most contentious issues in national politics — Trump, crime, and immigration. Democrats sought to paint the incumbents as Trumpian ideologues, while Republicans warned voters of an influx of “Philly crime” if Democrats took office, even as the violent crime rate in the city has dropped from its pandemic peak.
Voters opted for a change, delivering both offices to Democrats and, as result, spelling the end to a controversial partnership between the sheriff’s office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Bucks was the only county in the Philadelphia area to go for Trump last year and will be a key battleground in 2026 when Shapiro runs for reelection. Tuesday’s wins will give Democrats momentum going into the midterms.
Democrats, Khan said, had to work to prove to voters they could be trusted with public safety. They were aided by a favorable dynamic as voters rejected Trumpism.
“It was a campaign not about attacking somebody else but, really, making really clear that we deserve better than what we’ve got,” Khan said.
Voters at the polls persistently expressed frustration with Trump, and a sense that anyone from his party should not be trusted in office.
“They’re subject to his control, regardless of how they feel on issues,” said Stephanie Kraft of Doylestown. “And that affects everything, from our local courts on up to the higher courts in the state.”
The effort succeeded, indicating that Bucks voters are already disenchanted with the president they voted for just a year ago. The vote may set off alarm bells among Republicans as they prepare for next year’s election, when Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity seeks to oust Shapiro and Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick stands for reelection.
The Democratic victory is “on everything that Trump is doing to undermine the institutions of democracy, but it’s also on Trump’s failure to really reverse inflation,” said State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, the chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party.
Even so, for several voters, Harran’s partnership with ICE was the final straw.
Jill Johnson worried it would result in the targeting of Latino citizens, including her half-Mexican son, who is away at college.
“My biggest fear is that someone in a mask is going to come up and grab him because they think he’s here illegally,” Johnson said. “It’s scary. These are law-abiding people who have done nothing wrong.”
The partnership, which recently became active after months of planning, provoked backlash, including a lawsuit, public demonstrations outside the courthouse, and a repudiation by the Democratic-led board of commissioners.
Ceisler said Wednesday that he will issue a moratorium barring deputies’ cooperation with ICE on his first day in office. From there, he said, he will figure out how to disentangle the sheriff’s office from the agreement signed by his predecessor.
For his part, Harran said Wednesday that Ceisler will “have to answer for a person who becomes victimized by an individual that should have been deported. And he’ll have to sleep with that, and it’ll be on his head, not mine.”
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment.
Harran, an outspoken Republican who endorsed Trump last year and frequently clashes with the Democratic commissioners, was elected sheriff in 2021 after more than a decade leading Bensalem’s police department.
The Republican has expanded the role of the sheriff’s department, adding a K-9 unit and partnering with immigration officials, but faced criticism that he was failing to complete the basic duties of his job, such as executing warrants and protecting the courthouse.
Ceisler advocated taking politics out of the office, saying he would focus on domestic violence and pledging to end the partnership with ICE. He argued his experience in the Army and in a public safety leadership post under Shapiro prepared him to serve as sheriff — though Harran argued Ceisler would be unprepared for the job, having never worked in a sheriff’s office or police department.
“Being the sheriff isn’t on-the-job training,” Harran said at a Bristol polling place Tuesday. “You need knowledge and experience.”
Ceisler said he had spoken to Harran after the results came in and the incumbent promised to assist with a smooth transition.
Schorn, a veteran Bucks County prosecutor, lost in her bid for a full term after being appointed district attorney last year when her predecessor became a judge.
She had been an assistant district attorney in the county since 1999, prosecuting some of the county’s most high-profile cases. When she became district attorney, Schorn started a task force in the county to investigate internet crimes against children.
Khan, a former county solicitor and federal prosecutor, argued Schorn ran the office under “Trump’s blueprint” and criticized her decisions not to recuse herself when a Republican committeeperson was charged with voter fraud and not to prosecute alleged child abuse at Jamison Elementary School.
Schorn has said she was unable to discuss the details of the Jamison Elementary School case due to rules governing prosecutors, but Khan argued her explanations were insufficient as parents sought answers.
Schorn performed slightly better than her GOP counterparts in Bucks County on Tuesday. But, while many voters said they had no issue with Schorn’s policies, her political party was a turnoff.
“I just feel the Democrats would be better right now; I’m down on all Republicans,” said Marybeth Vinkler, a Doylestown voter who said she had no problems with how Schorn had run the district attorney’s office. “Everything happening in D.C. is trickling down around us.”
Schorn did not immediately comment on the results Wednesday.
Jim Worthington, who has run pro-Trump organizations in Bucks County, said Republicans failed to turn out voters on Election Day even as data showed Democrats held a significant lead on mail voting ahead of Tuesday.
“This is where the GOP was asleep at the wheel,” Worthington said.
Traditionally, voters trust Republicans more with law and order. The resounding victories for Democrats defied that trend.
“We now have an obligation to deliver and to show that Democrats can lead on the issue of safety,” Ceisler said.
“The ball is in our hands, and we’re ready to run with it.”
Staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
