Willow Street resident Audra King said she’s been more motivated to vote in municipal elections ever since schools were closed by government officials in 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
King, 44, said she saw those closures as the ultimate example of government overreach — so upsetting that they drive her to vote in municipal elections to this day.
She said she was enthused about the Republican Party’s victories on the national stage last year, but King said those wins, and the complacency they may trigger among GOP voters, could hurt the party in this year’s local races.
“Republican voters might feel saturated from the last election,” said King, who volunteers with the Lancaster County GOP.
Republicans, dominant in much of Lancaster County, are fighting to maintain their long-held but slipping grip on some suburban municipal governments, with increasing numbers of independent or third-party voters casting deciding votes.
With Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, many political analysts agree that Democrats have the wind at their backs. Locally, party members are working to take advantage of a potential blue wave that could help them gain more school board and commissioner or supervisor seats countywide.
Still, local organizers from both major parties stressed that getting their voters to show up on Election Day is the biggest challenge.
Relatively few residents vote in off-year elections. In November 2023, for example, just under 124,000, or 36% of registered voters, cast a ballot — a municipal election record for Lancaster County, but far less than the 290,000, or 79%, who turned out in last year’s presidential election.
Compare those figures to the sub-25% and roughly 21% of registered voters who turned out to the polls in 2005 and 2015, respectively, and it’s clear voters’ interest has grown a bit over the years when it comes to determining who runs local governments.
Political watchers think this year could set another turnout record for an off-year election.
If that is the case, the GOP holds a significant advantage countywide. About 51% of Lancaster County’s registered voters are aligned with the Republican Party, according to Oct. 13 data from the Department of State, while just 31% are Democrats. The remaining 18% are registered as either independent or third-party — a share that grew by a full percentage point just in the last 18 months.
Door to door
Laura Pannell, 45, has volunteered for the Lancaster County Democrats for the last two years, mostly working on voter outreach for candidates running in her home municipality, Manheim Township.
She said voters whom she has spoken to often talk about their frustration with the area’s heavy traffic and limited supply of affordable housing. Potential property tax hikes, she said, are another concern.
“This isn’t the big, sexy presidential election,” Pannell said. “You’re not going to hear campaign ads everywhere and to be inundated with that. But this is an important one because this is where your local tax dollars are going. And it affects your everyday life.”
In 2023, Democrats gained significant ground in Manheim Township. The party won all five open school board seats and picked up one seat on the board of commissioners, thinning the GOP majority to 3-2.
This year, the GOP’s majority on Manheim Township’s board of commissioners is vulnerable, exacerbated by all three incumbents’ decisions not to seek reelection, and the party is defending three seats on the school board, with just one incumbent running for reelection.
Democrats especially see opportunity after James Malone’s upset win in a March special election for northern Lancaster County’s 36th Senate District — an area Trump won by 15 percentage points just last November.
The district includes areas Democrats are also targeting, like school board contests in Hempfield, Elizabethtown and Warwick, as well as supervisor seats in East Hempfield and mayor and council seats in Lititz.
While Republicans dismiss Malone’s win as a fluke, some admit it’s a wake-up call for GOP voters ahead of the Nov. 4 election.
Jenna Reath, vice chair of the Republican Committee of Lancaster County, said defending school board seats in Manheim Township and the other key districts is the party’s main focus.
“The Dems are certainly putting up challengers in those races …. which just means we’re going to invest more dollars and more manpower in those school board races,” Reath said.
A bellwether for how well the GOP defends its position in Lancaster County this year is the competitive Hempfield School District race. In 2023, Democrats won two seats, marking the first time the party elected candidates to the board.
Lancaster County Democratic Committee Chair Tom O’Brien said the party’s effort to win school board majorities is about promoting “a dialogue between our school board members, the community and the educators.”
Without detailing the party’s campaign strategy, O’Brien said voters should expect “a lot of surprises” once results are released on Election Night.
“There’s voter frustration, and I think what we’re talking about is how to break that cycle,” O’Brien said.
Trickle-down politics
Both major parties have a long history of drawing highly polarizing national political issues into local municipal races.
In 2021, Republicans leaned heavily into campaigning against critical race theory being taught in classrooms and allowing transgender students to participate on sports teams. This year, the state GOP is spending heavily to oust three state Supreme Court justices in this year’s judicial retention votes, which could pay off for down-ballot candidates if the court retention issue drives Republican turnout.
But that issue could also boost Democrats, who are already keen to oppose the Trump administration’s cutbacks to public education, and thus could help them win more local school board races.
That’s partially because Trump’s policies are among the “more prevalent” issues that Democratic voters cite in conversations with local party organizers, O’Brien said. This year’s election, he said, is also “a statement of what’s coming from Washington.”
Reath acknowledged the GOP’s control over the federal government may drive Democratic turnout this year.
“Fighting against something is a huge motivator,” she said. “But despite all of that energy, (Democrats) still failed to get two candidates for our county row offices this time around.”
She’s right. No Democrats will appear on the ballot for either the county controller or the recorder of deeds races.
Franklin & Marshall College political scientist Stephen Medvic said federalizing local races is harmful to democracy, even if the connection seems clear.
“We’ve got all these local problems, and they’re not necessarily inherently partisan in terms of their solution,” Medvic said, echoing a famous quote from Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter: “There is no Democratic or Republican way to fill a pothole.”
“The antidote to highly polarized national politics is focusing on the hyperlocal,” Medvic said. “Municipal elections are as local as it gets in the United States.”