Democrats continue to lose supporters in Carbon, NEPa

Once upon a time, not too long ago, Carbon County was considered a “safe” Democratic stronghold, especially in county elections, but no more.

In the past decade, Democrats in Carbon, as well as elsewhere in northeastern Pennsylvania, have been losing registered voters in droves.

The message was underscored in November’s municipal election where Carbon Republicans swept every contested countywide office, including control of the commissioners’ office. In fact, the last time the Democrats had majority control of the commissioners’ office was in 2007. That was also the year the Democrats won six row offices, five of them being uncontested.

Even incumbents, District Attorney Jean Engler, Clerk of Courts Francine Heaney and Prothonotary Joann Behrens, could not fend off this year’s Republican tsunami. Engler’s defeat was decisive as she lost to Democrat-turned-Republican Michael Greek, who had 63% of the vote. Heaney lost by 100 votes, while Behrens lost by about 470.

Aside from newly elected minority Commissioner Rocky Ahner, the only county Democrats who will remain in office are Sheriff Anthony Harvilla, who was unopposed for re-election in November, and Treasurer Ronald Sheehan, who is the midst of a four-year term. He had run unopposed in 2017.

As recently as five years ago, Democrats had a voter registration lead of more than 4,100, but, after that, cracks started appearing in the party’s dominance, then accelerated in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election when Carbon overwhelmingly favored Republican Donald J. Trump with 65% of the vote.

This was certainly not the first time that Carbon had favored a Republican presidential candidate. While Carbon slightly favored Barack Obama in 2008 over John McCain, the county went for George W. Bush in 2004, and preferred Mitt Romney over Obama in 2012. Most local political observers believe the county will heavily favor Trump’s re-election quest in 2020.

Robert W. Miller Jr. was the first Republican to break the Democratic stranglehold on county row offices when he won the coroner’s office in 2015 over Democrat Daniel Blazosky. Five-term Democrat Bruce Nalesnik retired that year.

Republican Jean Papay was next when she won the Register of Wills office in 2017 after failing in a bid to unseat Democrat Judy Moon four years earlier. Moon retired at the end of 2017 after more than 20 years in office.

So why are Carbon Democrats abandoning their former party? After all, this is a shift of nearly 5,700 registrations since 2014. Republicans pulled even in registration — in fact it was a dead heat — going into the 2018 primaries. As of November’s general election, Republicans held a 1,579 voter registration edge. The trend is unmistakable.

According to state Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, Democrats have abandoned their blue-collar roots. Turning back the hands of time, the Democrats were considered to be the party of the working man and woman, the union members in the mines and steel mills, the immigrants who came here from southern, central and eastern Europe. The Republicans were said to be the party of the rich and well-connected.

Of course, nothing is this black and white, and while there are certainly some grains of truth to these simplistic narratives, things have changed dramatically.

Heffley cited former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s famous quote: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the party left me.” In later years, Reagan may have been a fierce believer in limited government and conservatism, but it wasn’t always like that. A former Democrat, Reagan was a strong advocate of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Heffley said he has talked to constituents in his 122nd District, some of them lifelong Democrats who switched parties because they are “appalled at what they are seeing.” Heffley said many are concerned by the march toward socialist ideas and the ever-increasing intrusion of big government that party leaders and some 2020 candidates are promoting.

Carbon Democratic Party Chair Billy O’Gurek, son of retiring Carbon Commissioner William O’Gurek, said Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties are “ground zero” for where the Trump and conservative GOP message has been resonating so effectively.

He agreed with Heffley that Democrats are being targeted as advocates of socialist ideas and that the GOP message of pro-gun, pro-life, less government is playing well to a growing conservatism in these local counties, while, at the same time, Democrats are being perceived as anti-business and anti-capitalism.

O’Gurek, who favors Joe Biden, a more centrist candidate, as the Democratic nominee in 2020, said the narrative coming from some national candidates is not finding acceptance in increasingly conservative areas of the county such as Mahoning, Franklin and Towamensing townships.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com