Shocking special election win builds motivation for Democrats seeking purple seats this year

• By Jade Campos and Jaxon White/ LNP | LancasterOnline

Hempfield Democrats broke through in 2023.

The party saw its first candidate, likely ever, win a seat on East Hempfield Township’s board of supervisors. Two Democrats also won school board seats. Judy Brady, one of the area’s successful Democratic school board candidates, called the party’s victories “historic.”

Two years later, local Democrats are still riding a high, and their motivation for the upcoming municipal primaries got a bigger boost following Democrat James Malone’s surprising win in a special election last month in the solidly Republican 36th Senate District.

The 36th District includes East and West Hempfield, which comprise Hempfield School District.

Malone won East Hempfield with 1,117 votes more than his Republican opponent, county Commissioner Josh Parsons, who lives in the township and was the popular pick for the Senate seat. Five of the seven precincts in West Hempfield, a traditionally conservative township, also turned blue for Malone.

Michael Mezzetti, who chairs the Hempfield Area Democratic Committee, said the party is energized and ready to capitalize on its recent successes. He’s optimistic Malone’s victory could be an indicator of what’s yet to come for Hempfield in this year’s municipal and school board elections.

“You really can’t help but feel a little hopeful seeing the number of supporters who came out to vote,” Mezzetti said of the special election.

The more heavily populated areas in Lancaster County are turning shades of purple, meaning neither party decisively dominates in elections. Purple municipalities throughout the 36th District turned blue for Malone — including East Hempfield and Manheim townships as well as the boroughs of Elizabethtown, Lititz and Columbia.

Elizabethtown Area Democratic Committee Chair Kristy Moore, who is running for school board as a part of a bipartisan slate, echoed Mezzetti’s excitement. She said Malone’s victory in Elizabethtown points to the party’s growth across the school district, which includes Mount Joy, East Donegal, West Donegal and Conoy townships.

Moore has already run three unsuccessful bids for Elizabethtown’s school board, but she said something feels different this year. Voters across both parties are at a breaking point and are tired of “culture war issues” and “extremism,” she said, and are coming together.

“We’re seeing a pattern that is encouraging,” Moore said. “We’re seeing Democrats perform better, but their performance also means people from other parties, whether it’s Republicans or independents, are casting their votes for Democrats. Democrats on their own are not able to achieve that.”

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READ: Meet the 8 Democrats competing for a seat on Lancaster City Council this May

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‘Not rocket science’

Hempfield Area GOP Chair Scott Wiglesworth, who also serves as East Hempfield’s board of supervisors chair, said Malone’s victory should be a “wake-up call” for Republicans.

“You gotta give credit where credit is due. Their voters are energized and coming out. Ours need to come out,” Wiglesworth said. “I think we have a lot of passionate voters, but in these types of elections, they’re busy… I think we have to get their attention.”

Republicans across the district agree. Wendy Voulopos, a first-time supervisor candidate in East Hempfield, said low voter turnout was a major contributor to the special election results. A mere 29% of voters came out to the polls in a district of more than 184,000 registered voters. If more people showed up, Voulopos said, Parsons would’ve won.

Parsons told LNP | LancasterOnline after his loss that Republican candidates must focus on driving voters to embrace mail-in voting, something he and many Pennsylvania Republicans have opposed in past elections.

In a race Parsons lost by just 526 votes, some Republicans likely cast their mail-in ballots for Malone. Democrats requested 55% of the mail ballots, but Malone won 70% of the total submitted in the election.

“Democrats continue to have a (built-in) advantage as they have around 50 days to get out the vote and Republicans largely just have one day,” Parsons said – referring to the typical window ahead of Election Days when mail-in ballots are sent out and voters are able to vote in-person at the county elections office.

Parsons also said the GOP will be in good standing for the municipal races if its candidates can ensure low-propensity voters participate, given the party’s voter registration advantage in most municipalities outside of Lancaster.

That type of get-out-the-vote effort is exactly what county GOP Chairman Kirk Radanovic said his organization had “renewed” its focus on. He also said the party will stress to Republicans that they should vote early this year.

Wiglesworth has been making the push for early voting and mail-in voting since at least 2023, after Democrat Bob Johnson won a seat on East Hempfield’s supervisor board.

“It’s not rocket science,” he said.

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READ: Lancaster mayoral candidates keep discussion civil, focus on issues during first debate

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Community issues

Political scientist Stephen Medvic, of Franklin & Marshall College, warned both parties against changing their municipal election strategies based on the special election outcome, which he said was mostly driven by a “unique” combination of low voter turnout and high enthusiasm among the Democrats.

Medvic noted those factors could carry into this year’s municipal elections, meaning successful Republicans will need to generate turnout in some of Lancaster County’s competitive areas in a year where Democratic energy is heightened.

But the municipal elections will be “relatively normal” participation-wise, he said, and the candidates’ messaging will play a larger role in deciding competitive races than it might have in the special election.

Party leaders agree. Neither Republicans nor Democrats plan to change anything about their voter outreach strategies — they just plan to do more of it, including reaching people by phone and at their doors.

Both parties also want to focus on the basics of local government, like roads and public safety, because both sides say voters are tired of national issues affecting their townships and boroughs.

“These are not partisan issues. These are local, community issues that pretty much everyone in the community cares about. Traffic affects everyone,” said Carol Gifford, a Democratic commissioner in Manheim Township who serves as the campaign chair for the party’s three-person slate of commissioner candidates.

Stella Sexton, vice-chair of the county Democrats, said the party’s candidates are hearing voters talk about a mix of local and national issues, though she said they largely mention the national issues from a local angle.

As an example, Sexton said voters in Manheim Township have told school board candidates they’re worried about President Donald Trump slashing the federal Department of Education’s funding toward school districts. Meanwhile, in East Hempfield Township, Sexton said voters have talked about their township supervisors cutting funding for Lancaster Public Library.

“People just on a visceral level are concerned about chaos,” Sexton said. “And they want to see local leaders who are stable, who are reasonable, rational, who are willing to work with all different kinds of people, and who are not going to make chaotic decisions that throw our systems into turmoil.”

While Wiglesworth was a major proponent of East Hempfield’s cuts to the library last year in response to a planned Drag Queen Story Hour — later canceled and the subject of a bomb threat — he said he wants to stick to municipal issues. All Republicans do, he added, particularly when it comes to keeping taxes low and funding essential services like fire and police.

“We don’t want flamethrowers. We want people who want to do the job and, for the betterment of the community, make it better than we left it,” Wiglesworth said. “We were put in the middle of (the library) issue. We did not create that issue.”

A contrarian argument can be made to both parties’ insistence that they plan to focus on local issues. Malone’s upset in March was driven, to a large degree, by Democrats looking to send a message to Trump and the national GOP. Many political observers have connected Malone’s victory to other special elections nationwide this year where Democrats overperformed, in some cases winning in overwhelmingly Republican districts.

Likewise, the impressive gains the Lancaster County Republicans made in the 2021 elections were fueled by opposition to the COVID-19 lockdown, sparking the launch of still-active grassroots groups like FreePA. Two years later, it was Moms for Liberty activists who helped elect conservative candidates nationwide, including a handful of local school boards like Warwick and Elizabethtown.