Chester County flips to ‘blue’

WEST CHESTER » The moment political observers have predicted would come someday has arrived: Chester County has turned Democratic.

On Monday, figures kept by the state Department of State showed that those Chester County voters registering as Democrats surpassed registered Republicans, the last of the suburban ring counties around traditionally “blue” Philadelphia in which that was the case.

As of the latest count, there are 148,194 Democrats in the county, compared with 147,966 registered Republicans. The gap between the two major parties, once seen as virtually insurmountable, has been closing for the past 12 years at least, and now stands at 41.38 percent for Democrats and 41.32 percent for Republicans, a slight, but historic, edge.

Just a week prior, the GOP still held the upper hand in registrations, although just barely. On May 4, there were 147,912 Republicans registered to vote in the county versus 147,849, a difference of 63 voters. The Democrats, thus, signed up 291 voters in just a week, even as the deadline date of May 18 approaches for the June 2 presidential primary.

“More Democrats than Republicans in Chester County?,” said Dick Bingham, chairman of the Chester County Democratic Committee on Tuesday. “Who would have believed it?” Republican majorities and pluralities in neighboring Bucks, Delaware, and Montgomery counties disappeared in the Democratic surge years ago.

Bingham, who has seen the

GOP margin erode in his home county almost monthly since he took over as head of the party in 2018, noted that 20 years ago there were over 80,000 more Republicans than Democrats, and 18,000 more in 2016 when he said Republican registration peaked. “Since that time there has been Republican flight, decreasing their registration by over 7,000, and a Democrat stampede, gain

ing over 11,000 new registrations in that same time.

“The registration flip has occurred over many years with literally hundreds of people working very hard to make it happen,” Bingham said. “And the trend is accelerating. As we have proven over the last three election cycles, Democrats win the vast majority of countywide races even with a registration disadvantage. We have no intention of letting up now.”

Even without a registration edge, Democrats have been able to replace all the Republican row office elected officials in the past two local election cycles. The party now controls all the seats in the county courthouse save one.

Bingham’s counterpart at Chester County Republican Committee headquarters, Chairman Rick Loughery, called the new figures a “slight bump for Democrats” that was “not surprising, as they had a competitive primary that has brought a sharper focus to the Democrat Party as they sorted through a lot of bad options to represent them on the presidential ticket.”

Loughery also pointed to the face that there remains a significant number of independent voters who chose not to align themselves with either major party in the county. In Monday’s report, there were 61,895 voters in the “other” category, either registered independents or members of small and fringe parties — Libertarian, Green, or Good Neighbor or Halloween parties.

“This also confirms what we have already known about Chester County voters — they have an independent streak and you have to work hard to earn their support, something I am certain that our Republican candidates will be able to do in November.”

Loughery also claimed that Democrats have “the larger number of inactive voters” in the county, “which begs the question as to what the county plans to do to update the voter rolls and accurately represent eligible voters in Chester County.”

Last November, as county voters went to the polls to elect county and municipal officials, observers of the political scene said that it was only a matter of time before the county joined with the three other suburban Philadelphia counties in becoming more Democratic than Republican.

“Barring any unforeseen developments, it is an inevitable shift,” said John Kennedy, professor of political science at West Chester University, who has studied voting trends across the state for several years, at the time. “Chester County is a decade behind (the other suburban counties), but given the political forces and Demographic shifts at work, it is inevitable that it will become Democratic. It is the last to fall.”

Things were not always thus. In 1980, the year of the Reagan Revolution, when the GOP presidential candidate took 60 percent of the county’s vote, Republican voters outnumbered Democrats better than 2-to1. It was remarked that that had half of the county’s then-92,920 GOP voters dropped off the face of the earth on Election Day 1980, they would still best the county’s 40,467 Democratic voters by almost 6,000 voters.

The party’s presidential electoral victories continued through the 1980s and 1990s, topping off with a 70 percent edge for Reagan in 1984. But in 2008, thenU.S. Sen. Barack Obama scored a historic victory in the county by winning 54 percent of the vote (Lyndon Johnson got the same percentage in 1964 in the wake of the John Kennedy assassination.) Obama basically tied the Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, and then Hillary Clinton defied the state results in 2016 by outpolling Donald Trump 52 percent to 43 percent.

This year, of the 11,054 voter registration applications, either new or changing parties, the largest number by far were Democrats — 7,288 to 2,411 Republicans and 1,355 other voters. Those switching parties from the GOP or independents numbered 4,137, compared with 746 switching to become registered Republicans.

“Chester County voters are looking for the qualified candidates who can get results, and it will be important that Democrats continue to recruit and candidates who qualified, capable, and can appeal to all of Chester County,” said Commissioner Josh Maxwell, who with fellow Democrat Commissioner Marian Moskowitz became the first Democratic duo to lead the three-member board.

“This trend is not just indicative of people changing their party registrations, although that’s a big part, it’s also because our county is growing in numbers and new people are moving here and staying here because they love it here,” Maxwell, who previously served as mayor of Downingtown, said. “A whole new generation of folks — new to Democratic politics and politics, in general, are winning seats on school boards and councils.

“Now that the numbers are in our favor, we must govern effectively and continue to improve our wonderful county.”

Loughery’s thoughts on non-affiliated voters was echoed by Republican Commissioner Michelle Kichline, who served as chairwoman of the board until the Democratic wave in 2019.

“We can’t ignore that we have a growing number of Independents who are not tied to either party,” Kichline said in an e-mail. “My experience with Chester County voters is that they are educated and vote on issues. In the past, when it was a majority of registered Republican voters we had some very successful Democratic candidates win major offices, such as (state Sen. Andy) Dinniman.

“You win by running qualified candidates who know what is important to for their area and that work hard for their constituents,” she said.

The county does have the largest percentage of independent or “other” voters of the suburban counties. In Bucks County, the 74,522 “other” voters make up 16 percent of the 460,039 voters counted there on Monday. Those percentages drop to 15 percent and 12 percent in Montgomery County — which has the largest number of suburban voters in the state with 572,582, according to the latest figures — and Delaware County, with its 403,735 voters, respectively.

“The demographics have been changing in Chester County for quite a few years, concluded Moskowitz. “People are looking for new ideas and less political fighting. We are looking for leaders who are positive and looking toward the future and most of all we want to trust those in Government. Much of that has been lost along the way.

“The Democrats have been given an opportunity to show their leadership skills which we never really had,” she added. “We must work hard to show that we can lead Chester County in a way that brings all people together by respecting all views while putting what is best for the county ahead of politics. I am confident we can and will succeed.”