While Bucks County — long considered a “purple county” as it could swing either way in many elections — turned red during the 2024 election for President Donald Trump, that support may have been short lived as voters in the county, on Tuesday, overwhelmingly voted for Democratic candidates.
In the election for county District Attorney, voters supported former federal prosecutor, Joe Khan, 47, by a margin of about 14% over his opponent, incumbent Republican District Attorney Jennifer Schorn.
Khan, of Doylestown, previously ran for state attorney general and, as a prosecutor, led sweeping corruption investigations in Allentown and Reading.
Also, in the race for Sheriff, Danny Ceisler, an army veteran and an attorney, defeated Republican incumbent Fred Harran, who has long been a fixture of law enforcement in Bucks County.
Harran recently pushed to allow deputy sheriffs to work with ICE and utilize a federal immigration database, an effort that received pushback from the ACLU.
Here, Ceisler unseated Harran by a margin of about 15%.
Finally, Democratic candidates were elected atop all row offices in Bucks County — including the Office of the Prothonotary, the Recorder of Deeds, the County Controller’s Office and others.
Bucks County officials react
NBC10 spoke with Harran a day after his loss.
“It was a blue tsunami that came through. We lost a lot of good people,” Harran said. “This country is, we have no middle ground anymore. We’re either hard to the right or hard to the left and it’s very dangerous on both sides.”
While Harran contemplates his next move, Bucks County Sheriff-elect Danny Ceisler told NBC10 he’s planning his transition to take over the sheriff’s office.
“Now it’s time to begin governing,” Ceisler said. “It’s really about taking politics out of public safety.”
Ceisler also spoke about how the current political environment across the country impacted elections in Bucks County.
“There is a lot of energy and anger about what’s going on in Washington,” he said. “A lot of the reason we won, it wasn’t just democrats. This is a purple county.”
State Senator and Bucks County Democratic Chair Steve Santarsiero said democrats returned to traditional messaging on the economy and finances. He also said the national political scene motivated some residents to get out and vote and others to stay home.
“I think a year later there are a lot of people who have buyer’s remorse,” he said. “I think two really important messages have come out this year. One is the cost of healthcare and on that issue, I think democrats have an advantage because we are fighting for people to bring their healthcare cost down. The other is affordability. We still have inflation here in the United States.”
Santarsiero also talked about the Democratic party’s plan to hold onto their lead in Bucks County.
“A lot of things can change in a year but typically with the same president in office and the same party in power in Washington, D.C., there’s no reason to assume that we’re not going to have another great environment next year for democrats,” he said.
Santarsiero also said the wins from democrats showed that voters wanted change and that his party will continue with its messaging that they support working families.
NBC10 also reached out to the Bucks County GOP Chair who was not available for comment.
You can view other election results across Pennsylvania and New Jersey here.
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