Democrats sweep Bucks County law enforcement races, ousting a sheriff who sought controversial ICE partnership

Democrats swept two law enforcement races in Bucks County, ousting the incumbents and signaling the swing county has soured on President Donald Trump just a year after voting for him.

Democrat Danny Ceisler, an Army veteran who held a public safety role in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, led Republican Sheriff Fred Harran by 12 percentage points with all precincts reporting Wednesday morning. The sheriff race centered on Harran’s controversial decision to partner his agency with ICE as Trump ramps up immigration enforcement nationwide.

And former Bucks County Solicitor Joe Khan led Republican District Attorney Jen Schorn by eight percentage points. Democrats believe Khan is the first member of their party to ever be elected to the office.

Bucks County Democrats declared victory just after midnight Wednesday morning — sweeping every countywide race. The victories came in what appeared to be a blue wave election as voters rejected Republican candidates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia.

“What’s going on with our federal government is not normal, and voters saw that creeping into local offices, and they overwhelmingly rejected it,” Ceisler said Wednesday. “Bucks County doesn’t let extremism come inside.”

The hotly contested Bucks County races centered on some of the most contentious issues in national politics — Trump, crime, and immigration. Democrats sought to paint the incumbents as Trumpian ideologues, while Republicans warned voters of an influx of “Philly crime” if Democrats took office, even as the violent crime rate in the city has dropped from its pandemic peak.

Voters opted for a change, delivering both offices to Democrats and, as result, spelling the end to a controversial partnership between the sheriff’s office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Bucks was the only county in the Philadelphia area to go for Trump last year and will be a key battleground in 2026 when Shapiro runs for reelection. Tuesday’s wins will give Democrats momentum going into the midterms.

Democrats, Khan said, had to work to prove to voters they could be trusted with public safety. They were aided by a favorable dynamic as voters rejected Trumpism.

“It was a campaign not about attacking somebody else but, really, making really clear that we deserve better than what we’ve got,” Khan said.

Voters at the polls persistently expressed frustration with Trump, and a sense that anyone from his party should not be trusted in office.

“They’re subject to his control, regardless of how they feel on issues,” said Stephanie Kraft of Doylestown. “And that affects everything, from our local courts on up to the higher courts in the state.”

Harran attributed the GOP losses to Democratic enthusiasm for retaining three left-leaning state Supreme Court justices.

“We woke a sleeping giant. When I say ‘we,’ I don’t mean me; I mean the Republican Party at the state level,” Harran said Wednesday.

“I also worry for Bucks County,” he added. “We’re going to have Philadelphia policies and politics in Bucks County, and that’s extremely dangerous.”

Democrats control the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, but Trump narrowly won Bucks last year, marking the first time the purple county had gone for a Republican in the presidential race since the 1980s. There are more registered Republicans than Democrats in Bucks County, but Democrats hoped the president’s low approval ratings, and Harran’s decision to partner with ICE, would drive angry voters to the polls in high numbers.

The effort succeeded, indicating that Bucks voters are already disenchanted with the president they voted for just a year ago. The vote may set off alarm bells among Republicans as they prepare for next year’s election, when Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity seeks to oust Shapiro and Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick stands for reelection.

The Democratic victory is “on everything that Trump is doing to undermine the institutions of democracy, but it’s also on Trump’s failure to really reverse inflation,” said State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, the chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party.

Even so, for several voters, Harran’s partnership with ICE was the final straw.

Jill Johnson worried it would result in the targeting of Latino citizens, including her half-Mexican son, who is away at college.

“My biggest fear is that someone in a mask is going to come up and grab him because they think he’s here illegally,” Johnson said. “It’s scary. These are law-abiding people who have done nothing wrong.”

The partnership, which recently became active after months of planning, provoked backlash, including a lawsuit, public demonstrations outside the courthouse, and a repudiation by the Democratic-led board of commissioners.

Ceisler said Wednesday that he will issue a moratorium barring deputies’ cooperation with ICE on his first day in office. From there, he said, he will figure out how to disentangle the sheriff’s office from the agreement signed by his predecessor.

For his part, Harran said Wednesday that Ceisler will “have to answer for a person who becomes victimized by an individual that should have been deported. And he’ll have to sleep with that, and it’ll be on his head, not mine.”

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment.

Harran, an outspoken Republican who endorsed Trump last year and frequently clashes with the Democratic commissioners, was elected sheriff in 2021 after more than a decade leading Bensalem’s police department.

The Republican has expanded the role of the sheriff’s department, adding a K-9 unit and partnering with immigration officials, but faced criticism that he was failing to complete the basic duties of his job, such as executing warrants and protecting the courthouse.

Ceisler advocated taking politics out of the office, saying he would focus on domestic violence and pledging to end the partnership with ICE. He argued his experience in the Army and in a public safety leadership post under Shapiro prepared him to serve as sheriff — though Harran argued Ceisler would be unprepared for the job, having never worked in a sheriff’s office or police department.

“Being the sheriff isn’t on-the-job training,” Harran said at a Bristol polling place Tuesday. “You need knowledge and experience.”

Ceisler said he had spoken to Harran after the results came in and the incumbent promised to assist with a smooth transition.

Schorn, a veteran Bucks County prosecutor, lost in her bid for a full term after being appointed district attorney last year when her predecessor became a judge.

She had been an assistant district attorney in the county since 1999, prosecuting some of the county’s most high-profile cases. When she became district attorney, Schorn started a task force in the county to investigate internet crimes against children.

Khan, a former county solicitor and federal prosecutor, argued Schorn ran the office under “Trump’s blueprint” and criticized her decisions not to recuse herself when a Republican committeeperson was charged with voter fraud and not to prosecute alleged child abuse at Jamison Elementary School.

Schorn has said she was unable to discuss the details of the Jamison Elementary School case due to rules governing prosecutors, but Khan argued her explanations were insufficient as parents sought answers.

Meanwhile, Schorn accused her opponent, who had unsuccessfully run for Philadelphia district attorney and Pennsylvania attorney general, of playing politics when he understood the rules prosecutors were bound by.

Schorn performed slightly better than her GOP counterparts in Bucks County on Tuesday. But, while many voters said they had no issue with Schorn’s policies, her political party was a turnoff.

“I just feel the Democrats would be better right now; I’m down on all Republicans,” said Marybeth Vinkler, a Doylestown voter who said she had no problems with how Schorn had run the district attorney’s office. “Everything happening in D.C. is trickling down around us.”

Schorn did not immediately comment on the results Wednesday.

Jim Worthington, who has run pro-Trump organizations in Bucks County, said Republicans failed to turn out voters on Election Day even as data showed Democrats held a significant lead on mail voting ahead of Tuesday.

“This is where the GOP was asleep at the wheel,” Worthington said.

Traditionally, voters trust Republicans more with law and order. The resounding victories for Democrats defied that trend.

“We now have an obligation to deliver and to show that Democrats can lead on the issue of safety,” Ceisler said.

“The ball is in our hands, and we’re ready to run with it.”

Staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.