FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHESTER COUNTY HAS A NEW HUE
FOR THE FIRST TIME (EVER), IT’S BLUE!

Voter Registration Numbers Just Released Show Democrats Ahead (!) By 228

West Chester (May 12, 2020) — Dick Bingham, Chairman of Chester County Democratic Committee, is getting the one birthday present this month no Chairman has ever been able to obtain during their multi-year reign. Chester County’s hue is now solid blue! As of this week, there are more registered Democratic voters than Republican for the first time – ever. “Zoom celebrations” and wearing a blue ribbon among the party’s 20 geographic zones are planned for this Friday, May 15.

“Anyone who has lived in Chester County since George W. Bush won the White House knows the enormity of this moment,” noted Chairman Bingham. “Back in November 2000 there were 81,405 more Rs than Ds registered in the county. The slow rise of our county party bumped significantly by 2008 when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office with the gap closing in at 25,478. It stayed there for ten years. Then we noticed the seismic movement among our neighbors in 2018 when Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan and six of the nine local State House races swung historically blue. Still, the gap was 11,300 voters!”

One year later, in November 2019, the Democrats successfully ended more than 200 years of republican dominance in dramatic fashion by sweeping the county-wide elections. That was despite a small but sustaining voter lead by the county Republicans of about 7,000.

As the weekly Chester County Press wrote just seven months ago, “In the aftermath of the unprecedented election results, everyone was feeling blue. Republicans were feeling blue because they had lost control of the county government—an outcome that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. And democrats were feeling blue because the blue wave continued to crest. This makes three straight years that democrats were energized during an election.”

“The democrats didn’t just win a majority on the three-person Chester County Board of Commissioners and the county row offices. They won supervisor races, school board elections, and seats on borough council. Republicans still hold a slight advantage in the number of registered voters county-wide, but Democrats showed up at the polls in stronger numbers—and it showed.”

The blue wave has finally crashed upon the shores of Charlestown, Easttown, Oxford and West Marlborough. Citizens still have until Monday, May 18 to register to vote or change their party affiliation.

To grasp the enormity of this moment, county leadership looked back 20 years, to 2000, when today’s accomplishment seemed like an impossible achievement.

The current registration edge is 148,194 Democrats, 147,966 Republicans, and 37,352 non-affiliated registered voters. With Independents and Republicans still holding significant influence and dollars in the upcoming November elections, Chairman Bingham stressed, “the Democrats are prepared to earn our neighbors’ votes through honest conversation about what can be, not in what’s being whispered. We are not in Washington. We do not run policy through tweets. This is Chester County. Any dirty tricks by television ads, campaign literature or gossip will not be tolerated. The Republicans no longer rule Chester County and they know it. Let’s share and play fair.”

ABOUT CHESTER COUNTY DEMOCRATS

The Chester County Democratic Committee believes in Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity for all Americans regardless of what they believe, who they are, or where they came from. Find them online at chescodems.org.