Demographic shifts boost Democrats in Delaware County

The winds of change are wafting through the longtime suburban Republican bastion of Delaware County. You can see it in the latest census, or in the head wear of an activist at Sunday's meeting of county Democrats.

The man wore a turban.

Demographic shifts in the county have given Democrats a boost. The African American population has increased 37 percent since 2000, according to the census. Democrats now are 43 percent of the county's registered voters, up from 30 two decades ago. And they hold a registration edge in Upper Darby, the state's most populous township and a traditional GOP stronghold.

But Republicans have not given up on courting the minority vote.

In fact, the county GOP endorsed a black candidate for Common Pleas Court this year - a man the Democrats like so much, they endorsed him, too.

Nathaniel C. Nichols, a Widener University law professor and a registered Republican for 30 years, is the only GOP candidate for a county seat this year who is not white.

"There's not a partisan drop of blood in this man," said David Landau, the lawyer who heads the county's Democratic organization. "Right now in Delaware County, there are no African American judges, no minority judges on the bench. That is simply unacceptable."

Landau praised the Democratic committee members who met Sunday for endorsing Nichols. "It's unconventional, but giving him a boost and getting him elected is going to be good for the people of Delaware County," he said.

The diverse crowd of about 200 Democrats that attended the meeting at Strath Haven Middle School in Nether Providence illustrates the changing demographics: Black men and women in suits filled the rows for the Chester City, Chester Township, and Darby Borough delegations. From tiny Millbourne, where whites are the minority, Councilman Alauddin Patwary, who hails from Bangladesh, sat by Councilman Gurbaksh Basra, who is from India. Basra wore a red turban.

Landau said it was too soon to see if black or immigrant voting blocs were emerging. But he said his party's registration gains in areas with growing minority populations gave him hope.

"Democrats now have a larger pool to draw from," Landau said. "You used to need Republican voters willing to split their tickets."

He and other Democrats point to last year's victory by Margot Davidson, the first Democrat ever to win the 164th State House District, which includes much of Upper Darby. Davidson is black.

Andy Reilly, the lawyer who leads the county GOP, scoffs at talk of Democrats' having the black and immigrant vote locked up.

"Democrats really make a mistake if they assume that because of the color of someone's skin that they're a Democrat," he said.

True, black Republicans have won in Chester and Upper Darby. This year, the GOP put up minority candidates in Ridley, Yeadon, even mostly white Thornbury.

Minority voters tend to lean Democratic - especially blacks, and especially at the national level. But Republicans still have a shot locally, says Randall Miller, a political historian at St. Joseph's University.

"I think the Democrats are, in the short term, better positioned," Miller said. "But it's not as if the Republicans have been bereft of minority support."

Both parties should move fast in the changing suburbs, Miller said. "Anybody who wants success in the long term is going to have to find ways to appeal to and recruit these populations. . . . Political habits, once established, are very difficult to break."

Recruiting minority candidates, he said, is "often the easiest way . . . of establishing the link between your party and a particular group."

He need not explain that to John F. McNichol, ruler of the Upper Darby GOP since the 1970s. McNichol says he has courted minority candidates for at least a decade in a community where 73 languages and dialects are spoken at the high school.

"We've always been, I think, enlightened enough to seek that vote," he said. "I always theorized if we could get 15 to 20 percent of that vote, we'd win any election in the state. I think I get close to 20 percent."

So he helped elect Upper Darby's first black council member in 2006. He backed two Vietnamese Americans who won school board seats. He recruited a Sikh to run for school board, too, though that candidate lost.

McNichol knows which way the wind is blowing.