Which Party Is Sane Enough to Win Philly's Suburbs?
In last years presidential election, the voting precinct surrounding suburban Philadelphias Radnor High School  a high-performing school on the tony Main Line  went for Joe Biden by 43 percentage points. A few months later, 75% of surveyed Radnor community members opposed changing the high schools mascot name from Raider  the source of a local conflict over cultural sensitivity toward Native Americans. But school board members, under pressure from student activists, proceeded with the name change. Fifteen miles north, on 1-476  known as the Blue Route  the similarly wealthy, suburban Upper Dublin Township was awash with Democratic votes in 2020. This year, though, a school board reform ticket called Upper Dublin United, composed of centrist Democrats and Republicans, is running to unseat board members who oversaw the districts long-running COVID-19 closures while area Catholic schools proceeded with daily in-person learning  while suffering virtually no COVID cases. UD Uniteds Facebook page celebrates Juneteenth and Pride Month but also includes odes to fiscal responsibility and stopping the tax increases.  Welcome to the Philadelphia suburbs, where Americas political future is up for grabs. In recent years, Philadelphias collar counties  Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks have undergone a dramatic political shift. Even before Donald Trumps presidency, the collar counties were at the forefront of an upper-middle class, suburban revolt against the GOP. In the 2000 presidential election, they went roughly 51% Democratic. By 2012, that number had risen to about 54%. In 2020, it jumped anther five percentage points. Greater Philadelphias move against Republicans is indicative of a trend throughout Mid-Atlantic suburbia. The Washington suburbs of Loudoun County, Va., went about 56% for George W. Bush in 2000; in 2020, Biden won Loudoun with around 62% of the vote. In northern New Jerseys Morris County, about 54% favored Bush in 2000  but two decades later, Biden carried 51% of the suburban countys vote. The answer to both questions will hinge on which party can offer the most compelling vision of sanity and stability to voters  a difficult task, given the radicalism spreading through Democrats and Republicans respective ranks. Philadelphias suburbs count many die-hard partisans. This is the case in towns like Wayne, for example, where devoted progressives adorn their manicured front lawns with Science Is Real yard signs. Its evident, too, in Lower Bucks communities, where one can still find Trump flags. But the region is also home to plenty of persuadables. When coupled with their resistance to school closures and mascot name changes, suburbanites Trump-era shift away from the GOP indicates that theyre not mere party-line voters. If anything, theyre open to changing their minds and interested in sanity and stability. Suburban Philadelphia is full of upper-middle-class, white-collar professionals who work long hours for large corporations and health care providers. A lot of money is made here, and a lot of hours are clocked  which is to say these voters have a stake in the system, writ large. They have bought into the status quo. The collar counties voters arent agitating for cultural revolution, big tax increases, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, or anything else that would upend life as they know it. The American dream is alive and well outside Philadelphia. People work hard and enjoy their summer weekends at the Jersey Shore or in the Pocono Mountains. To these voters, the political party that seems least threatening to their flourishing households is the choice to make. As it stands, Democrats hold a voter-registration edge in all four suburban counties, but they have yet to clear 50% in any of them. Their victories will hinge on swaying moderate Republicans and independent swing voters. Though Biden succeeded with both groups in 2020, its doubtful that future down-ballot Democratic candidates could do the same if the partys most vocal, leftmost flank drives the national conversation. If Republicans can push a sensible, non-conspiratorial candidate through congressional primaries and then paint the wider Democratic Party as the party of extreme progressivism rather than that of moderate, piecemeal liberalism, the Democrats suburban surge may prove relatively short-lived. That both parties routes to suburban dominance are so challenging points to greater obstacles: Suburban candidates will have a hard time making it through primaries in the first place, and even if they do, at the state level they could alienate more extreme urban and rural partisans. The political future of Philadelphias suburbs, then, will be determined largely by the political acumen of each partys down-ballot candidates. Whichever party triangulates best will win in 2022  and beyond.