While all eyes and the media was focused on the gubernatorial race in Kentucky and Virginia state legislature, the Pennsylvania suburbs made a sharp left turn getting a lot bluer. From Kate Riga at Talking Points Memo
The erosion of Republican dominance in places like Delaware County was stark. There, Democrats swept the county council, spurred on by a historic gain of two seats in 2017. Per the Philadelphia Inquirer, this is the first time Democrats have won all the seats on the council since before the Civil War.
The county Republican wipeout didn’t end there: all four GOP candidates for Common Pleas Court judgeships went down, as did the incumbent Republican district attorney.
Over in Bucks County, Democrats seem to have eked out two of three county commissioner board seats, taking control for the first time in decades.
And in Philadelphia proper, Working Families Party candidate Kendra Brooks became the first person from outside either major party to win a city council seat in over a century. She won one of the two at-large seats, a ding to Republicans who have held those two spots for 70 years.
Local Democratic triumphs like these may dim in the face of the flashy gubernatorial upset in Kentucky, but these races are likely the most important result from Tuesday’s election.
Tuesday night was a massive repudiation of decades of Republican control of these suburbs, and it was fueled by organization and mobilization of Democrats more motivated by their opposition to President Trump and his party than they ever have been before.
This trend was on clear display in the 2018 midterms, with a shellacking that won federal-level Democrats the House of Representatives for the first time since 2011. That win was largely attributed to distaste of Trump so permeating the suburban sprawl that liberals there got active, bucking the common knowledge that Democrats never show up in off-presidential election years.
Trump won Pennsylvania by a mere 44,292 votes, that was less than 1% of the the ballots cast.
Look out , Donnie, here we come.