Elections in Philly’s suburbs: A test of sanity and stability

In last year’s presidential election, the voting precinct surrounding Radnor High School went for Joe Biden by 43 percentage points. A few months later, 75% of surveyed Radnor community members opposed changing the high school’s mascot name from “Raider” — the source of a local conflict over cultural sensitivity toward Native Americans. But school board members, under pressure from student activists, proceeded with the name change.

The similarly wealthy, suburban Upper Dublin Township was awash with Democratic votes in 2020. This year, though, a school board reform ticket called “Upper Dublin United,” composed of centrist Democrats and Republicans, is running to unseat board members who oversaw the district’s long-running COVID-19 closures while area Catholic schools proceeded with daily in-person learning — while suffering virtually no COVID cases. UD United’s Facebook page celebrates Juneteenth and Pride Month but also includes odes to “fiscal responsibility” and “stopping the tax increases.”

Welcome to the Philadelphia suburbs, where America’s political future is up for grabs.

In recent years, Philadelphia’s “collar” counties — Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Bucks — have undergone a dramatic political shift. Even before Donald Trump’s presidency, the collar counties were at the forefront of an upper-middle-class, suburban revolt against the GOP. In the 2000 presidential election, they went roughly 51% Democratic. By 2012, that number had risen to about 54%. In 2020, it jumped another five percentage points.

Now, ahead of next year’s midterms — which include a fight for the GOP seat held by retiring Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey — can Democrats replicate their Trump-era success in places like suburban Philadelphia? Or, without Trump atop the party ticket, could Republicans revive their Bush-era suburban competitiveness?

The answer to both questions will hinge on which party can offer the most compelling vision of sanity and stability to voters — a difficult task, given the radicalism spreading through Democrats’ and Republicans’ respective ranks.

Philadelphia’s suburbs count many die-hard partisans. This is the case in towns like Wayne, for example, where devoted progressives adorn their manicured front lawns with “Science Is Real” yard signs. It’s evident, too, in Lower Bucks, where Trump flags remain.

But the region is also home to plenty of “persuadables.” When coupled with their resistance to school closures and mascot name changes, suburbanites’ Trumpera shift away from the GOP indicates that they’re not mere party-line voters. If anything, they’re open to changing their minds and interested in sanity and stability.

The collar counties’ voters aren’t agitating for cultural revolution, big tax increases, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, or anything else that would upend life as they know it. The American dream is alive and well outside Philadelphia. People work hard and enjoy their summer weekends at the Jersey Shore or in the Pocono Mountains. To these voters, the political party that seems least threatening to their flourishing households is the choice to make.

As it stands, Democrats hold a voter registration edge in all four suburban counties, but they have yet to clear 50% in any of them. Their victories will hinge on swaying moderate Republicans and independent swing voters. Though Biden succeeded with both groups in 2020, it’s doubtful that future down-ballot Democratic candidates could do the same if the party’s most vocal, leftmost flank drives the national conversation.

If Republicans can push a sensible, non-conspiratorial candidate through congressional primaries and then paint the wider Democratic Party as the party of extreme progressivism rather than that of moderate, piecemeal liberalism, the Democrats’ suburban surge may prove relatively short-lived.

The political future of Philadelphia’s suburbs, then, will be determined largely by the political acumen of each party’s downballot candidates. Can they offer the vision of sanity and stability that suburbanites crave while placating the grievances of the voting base? Whichever party triangulates best will win in 2022 — and beyond.