Democratic Party’s momentum builds in this Central Pa. municipality with first full slate of candidates since 2001

• By Jade Campos and Ashley Stalnecker / LNP | LancasterOnline

Kids exploded with laughter as another piece of candy went flying across Lake Street in downtown Ephrata.

The late-September night was getting long and a little chilly, and the children had lost interest in the parade passing by. Instead, they were trading candy with kids on the other side of the street, tossing sweets to each other between floats without ever leaving their respective curbs.

But in between making sure their kids didn’t get too close to the floats, parents were paying attention to the borough’s annual parade, a staple of the annual weeklong fair. They watched as floats sponsored by local political parties slowly crept by.

As the Ephrata Area Republican Committee approached the judges’ stand, some parade watchers let out a few woops and cheers as a volunteer waved a “Take America Back” sign on top of a trailer decorated with hay bales and pulled by a pickup truck.

The local Democrats were next, and their float was twice as big as the GOP’s. The party had people walking with signs supporting their candidates in the upcoming school board and Borough Council races. As a line of cars passed, Democratic candidates stuck their heads out of rolled-down windows to wave to the crowd.

But when Gavin Grove, the Ephrata Area Democratic Committee chair, cheered and pumped his hands in the air on top of a trailer surrounded by other party members, he was met with silence from the crowd.

After the Democrats’ float passed by onlookers, one man on the sidewalk yelled at the next float, “Turn that music up so we don’t have to hear (the Democrats).”

A lot of Ephrata locals would not be surprised by that reaction. Republicans comprise 58% of registered voters in the borough, compared to the Democrats’ 21%. Trump signs peppered the 3-mile parade route. As Grove tried to pump up the energy among onlookers, a sign nailed to the porch of a house behind read: “Trump has my vote, but my hope is in Jesus!”

Still, Ephrata Democrats believe things are changing. The mere fact that the crowd didn’t hurl boos their way or that they weren’t the intended targets of the candy the kids were throwing to each other meant something.

This year, the party is running a full slate of candidates for the first time since at least 2001 — a candidate for all but one open seat on Borough Council, as well as the borough mayor race and the Ephrata school board.

“There’s a sense of encouragement and hopefulness among the Democratic candidates that we’re not demonized, as we so often are, by the Republicans, and just that, a lot of people are perhaps looking for an alternative,” Democratic school board candidate Timothy Craven said.

 

‘A tide is coming’

Ephrata attracted national attention last year when former Vice President Kamala Harris opened a campaign office on East Main Street, the first presidential candidate office in the borough’s history.

Grove said the physical presence of the Harris campaign energized the party, boosting optimism about their chances at the local level. For Grove, this is the first year in a long time that it feels like the party is running a “real campaign.”

In the past, he said, area Democrats put forward one or two candidates per municipal cycle with little voter outreach. Now, party volunteers are knocking on doors, hosting campaign events and making a splash at the parade.

“If local progressives can continue (this) type of momentum, I think eventually, whether conservatives like it or not, a tide is coming,” said Borough Council candidate Albert Cobian.

Grove pointed to the state Senate special election in March where Democrat James Malone pulled out a surprise win against Republican county Commissioner Josh Parsons. Ephrata’s third ward turned blue for Malone, the first time a borough precinct voted for a Democrat in 25 years. The turbulent nature of national politics has likely pushed more people to the left, he said.

Thomas Reinhold, a Republican running for mayor, credited the Democrats for seizing the moment. Given the special election results, he said, the GOP shouldn’t take anything for granted and must try to keep the issues local to appeal to all residents.

“Trump can upset a lot of people, you know? And I would like to think the dominoes don’t fall all the way down to the local (level),” he said. “But I think if you talk to people, if you just show them how you are and you try to just have a commonsense approach to things and not try to create culture wars,” people will be happy.

 

Republicans confident

Most Republicans aren’t particularly concerned about the Democrats’ surge in energy. Council candidate Alan Buohl, initially elected in 2021, said he was confused by the Democrats’ sudden enthusiasm and unsure of what their “end goal” is.

On paper, it’s easy to understand why the GOP isn’t losing sleep over the borough races.

The remaining three Ephrata wards went for Parsons in the spring special election. Last year, too, the borough was bright red for President Donald Trump.

The GOP sells homemade whoopie pies and apple dumplings out of a concession trailer during the Ephrata Fair to fundraise for its political campaigns. Glen Beiler, Ephrata’s Republican committee chair, said he can’t remember a time when the trailer wasn’t stationed at a prime spot on East Main Street among the local Lions Club, carnival games and corndog stands across from Ephrata National Bank.

The spot holds significance, Beiler said, because the fair is one of the biggest campaigning efforts for the party, since most people don’t tune into local races until after Labor Day. Grove agreed Main Street is a prime location, so it was a big deal when the Democrats were able to squeeze into a spot just a few tents down from the Republicans a few years ago. For a long time, Grove said, the Democrats were relegated to a side street with little foot traffic.

Beiler admitted the Harris campaign office in 2024 helped motivate Republicans to campaign harder this municipal cycle. He said the party is trying to grow the number of GOP mail-in voters, a strategy that has proven effective for the Democrats. GOP volunteers were educating people on how to vote by mail throughout the fair week.

Still, when asked if he had any concerns that the Democrats would make a breakthrough in November, Beiler said no. But he laughed and nodded to the importance of the party’s fundraising efforts: “We have had to sell more apple dumplings.”

Municipal issues

Republicans hold every seat on Ephrata’s eight-person council. The candidates running this November are primarily older incumbents who have spent their entire lives in Ephrata. Victor Richard, a four-term council member, said his relatives were actually some of the last people to live on the Ephrata Cloister property.

Together, Republicans want to bring more local businesses downtown. Chad Ochs, a political newcomer, said he wants to “take what Lititz has downtown and take it to our town.”

Other GOP candidates spoke highly of supporting the Pioneer and Lincoln fire departments that have reported dwindling fundraising efforts, which could prompt elected officials to implement a short-term tax to support the departments.

“I think it can be affordable to the residents, maybe a one-time thing, and it’ll hold the businesses accountable that they need to come and make their payment. It won’t be an ask,” Buohl said, making the point that voluntary contributions from borough businesses would be preferred over mandatory taxes.

Reinhold, the current council president, is looking to fill the shoes of Mayor Ralph Mowen, who is retiring after more than 30 years in the office. The mayor’s role is mostly ceremonial but also involves heading the police department. Reinhold said he wants to maintain the relationships the borough has with other municipalities to provide police services.

Democrats aren’t far apart from Republicans on boosting downtown development. Cobian wants to improve pedestrian safety. Rumina Feyerherm, the party’s mayoral candidate, said tackling mounting concerns with the borough’s new parking system is one step to help business pick back up on Main Street and make good on the borough’s investment.

“If you have something that’s not working, you don’t just put it aside and say, “OK, it’s only a few thousand dollars,’” Feyerherm said. “You would do something to address it.”

Tim Barr, a two-term Republican council member, promised the borough is sorting out its parking concerns by talking to potential vendors to operate its new kiosks.

Most Democrats said they weren’t happy with council’s decision to require winter homeless shelters to obtain council approval to operate and restrict them from opening in residential areas. Jason Rieker said shelters should be allowed to operate throughout the entire year under any organization that is willing to do so. Republicans say the borough should partner with community organizations to combat homelessness.

“It’s cold before December. It’s still cold in April,” Rieker said. “I think we need to change the parameters that the churches are able to operate.”

Fellow Democrat Kalie Johnson said Ephrata should put an end to a policy requiring residents to sign up for electricity only through the borough, limiting their options.

School board issues

Since the pandemic, the Ephrata Area school board hasn’t ventured into controversial territory like other districts that have passed policies preventing transgender athletes from participating on sports teams aligning with their gender identity or partnered with the religious rights law firm Independence Law Center.

In other school districts, like Elizabethtown Area and Hempfield, those issues drew crowds of sometimes more than 100 residents who would bring signs and rally against the boards prior to meetings.

Ephrata’s board has stuck to the “boring” school issues, and public meetings have been sparsely attended. Even the Democratic candidates running for school board admitted they haven’t been regulars at board meetings.

Craven respects the job the current board has done and the rational decisions it has made, but said several members attend what he called “Christian nationalist” churches.

“I don’t think we have a bad group now, but there are a group of people who are pushing … religion in our public schools. We should be focused on excellence in education,” Craven said.

Craven is a pastor at Mellinger’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and was the first Democrat to be elected to the board in the early 2000s — a feat he attributed to cross-filing on both the Republican and Democratic tickets.

Since his time on the board, which was ended by the election of a Republican after one four-year term, he’s run for a seat and lost several times. But this election is different, he said, as Republicans seem more open to dialogue with the Democrats rather than an outright dismissal.

“Republicans actually have more respect for us,” Craven said.

His fellow candidate, Matthew Good, feels similarly optimistic despite the Republican leanings in the area.

“This idea of energy, this idea that people see a path forward for ideas different than what have been espoused previously, is, I think, what may have motivated more individuals to step up and be willing to run, either in the school board or the new municipal borough elections,” Good said. “That inspiration to not only, you know, espouse the ideas that maybe they have felt for a while, but to actually take action behind them.”

Only one Republican candidate, incumbent Timothy Stayer, agreed to answer questions about the GOP slate’s platform.

In an email, he said the slate doesn’t have a “traditional type of political platform” but is focused on “servanthood, serving our community and our community’s students and families.”

“Serving on the school board has nothing to do with politics,” Stayer said. “It’s all about serving our students and families of our school district.”

Though this is Good’s first time running for school board, he’s not unfamiliar with putting actions behind his ideas. Good quit his job as the Donegal Junior High School librarian after 14 years because administrators required him to enforce guidelines limiting students’ access to books.

Good can lean more into advocacy in his new role as an instructional technology librarian for Ursinus College in Collegeville, Montgomery County.

Acknowledging the controversial issues, including book banning and censorship, that other school boards have encountered, Good said he felt motivated to run “to make sure that we continue to allow students to learn freely, teachers to teach freely, students to access things, students to feel included and feel like they belong in the district.”

“Every student, every day” is the Democratic candidates’ platform and a major motivator in Lisa Martin’s personal campaign.

Martin said her family “grew up disadvantaged, and so the heart of what I do is to advocate for others.” Advocacy, she said, plays into her full-time career as a nurse. “I have a perspective as far as mental health goes looking at a person holistically and being able to care for them as a whole person.”

Compassion and justice are values that could be the shift drawing Ephrata residents to Democratic candidates, Martin said.

“There are some that are perhaps looking for a change, and are able to connect with the mission that we have,” she said.