Trump poised to be first Republican to win Bucks County since 1988 if narrow lead holds

President-elect Donald Trump held a narrow lead in Bucks County as of Wednesday, appearing to dent Democratic dominance in the Philly suburbs in presidential elections.

The 512 vote advantage drastically exceeded his 2020 performance, helping pave the way for his victory in the Commonwealth, and the nation.

If Trump wins the purple county, he will be the first Republican presidential candidate to carry it since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

But it is unclear at this point whether his lead will hold. Though all precincts are reported and the county has finished processing mail ballots, officials still have thousands of provisional and overseas ballots to tabulate.

Even so, the early results begin to paint a picture of one way Trump won Pennsylvania. He severely limited Harris’ margins in the Philadelphia suburbs, and potentially flipped a county that Harris needed to win by several points to carry the state.

It left Bucks County Republicans ecstatic at the GOP watch party at Newtown Athletic Center Tuesday night as they watched results come in and predicted a historic win.

“Tonight is going to be a special night,” Jim Worthington, leader of Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Republican National Convention, told the crowd.

For Pat Poprik, the chair of the Bucks County Republican Party, the first sign Trump may outperform expectations in the purple county came midsummer when, for the first time in more than a decade, Republicans outnumbered Democrats in voter registration.

The shift came in the midst of a chaotic summer in the campaign cycle. Trump had just survived an assassination attempt, and, following a disastrous debate performance, President Joe Biden had exited the race, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the new Democratic nominee.

“That number kept growing and growing and that was an indication that a lot of people were aligned with us,” she said.

In 2016, when Trump won his first term in office, he lost to Hillary Clinton by less than 1 point. Four years later, Biden defeated Trump in the county by a 4-point margin.

In order to win the state, Harris needed to win the county by margins that looked closer to Biden’s than Clinton’s.

“It’s not yet clear whether Trump will have won Bucks at the end of the day,” said State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, the chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party.

“Regardless, even if that’s not the case it’s still not enough to get Kamala Harris across the line statewide, and that was our goal.”

Bucks County voters are known for being moderate and willing to split tickets between Republicans and Democrats. U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican who has distanced himself from Trump, won reelection in the county by around 13 points Tuesday even as Trump held a narrow lead in the county.

Trump and Harris both devoted significant time and resources to Bucks County, knowing the margins in that county would be a key indicator of where Pennsylvania as a whole would fall.

Trump’s campaign spent significant time in the collar counties. He was in Bucks County earlier than any other, holding a fundraiser in April. He did a photo op at a Feasterville McDonald’s in the final weeks of his election, while his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, held a rally in September and another on the eve of the election.

Democrats set up several field offices in the county early in the race and Harris used it as her setting for a speech focused on persuading moderate GOP voters.

Leaders of both county parties pointed to the idea that Trump could bring change as the overarching cause of Tuesday night’s results.

“It certainly seems like there was a large Republican vote that was coming out,” Santarsiero said. “I think that had less to do with any effort on their side than it did with a, just a, belief by voters that they needed a change and he was seen as the candidate of change.”

He argued Democrats didn’t do enough to articulate why they were the party that could help families make ends meet.

Republicans in the county also benefited from voters that were less resistant to Republican politicians and work candidates and the county party has done over years to draw working class voters in lower Bucks County – once a Democratic stronghold – to the Republican Party.

“We’re the working party, the working people know we’re working for them,” Poprik said. “We’re not the big, bad Republican Party that just only cares about corporate. That’s emblazoned on the Democrats lately.”

It’s unclear at this point whether Tuesday’s results signal a shift to the right in Bucks County.

“There’s not that visceral pushback against Republicans you might find in other places so they’re well positioned,” said Guy Ciarrocchi, a Republican strategist based in Chester County.

Ciarrocchi argued the Bucks GOP approach could be a formula for suburban Republicans across the region. But Santarsiero said that if Republicans conclude that Bucks has moved to the right “they’re doing it at their own political peril.”

“What is clear is that we live in a pretty evenly divided county that has gone back and forth and will likely continue to go back and forth,” he said.

Staff writer Rita Giordano contributed reporting.