Joe and Jan Landis, aged 73 and 72 respectively, moved to Harleysville in 1975, and neither of them was particularly involved in politics. This is because their Mennonite church did not encourage participation in politics. However, Joe Landis noticed a change in the political dynamic in his area when Donald Trump ran for president. The majority of Montgomery County residents are affiliated with the Democratic Party.
This is due to a combination of factors such as demographic changes and shifts in voter behavior. The county has seen an influx of minority voters who tend to lean towards Democratic candidates. Additionally, President-elect Joe Biden was able to cut into Trump's margins among white voters who hadn't attended college while increasing his support among suburban voters outside Philadelphia. This shift has resulted in a Democratic majority in Montgomery County. QuickFacts provides statistics for all states and counties, and for cities and towns with a population of 5,000 or more.
Naimon chose Morella, a Republican who represented Montgomery County in Congress from 1987 to 2003, as the keynote speaker to emphasize the importance of bipartisan work. However, Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist at the Center for American Progress, believes that the radical long-term transformation of the county has less to do with changes in voters' political beliefs and more to do with changes in the political parties themselves. For instance, he notices big differences in graduation rates and employment after high school between students in Norristown schools, where students of color are in the majority, and students, mostly white, from nearby districts like Lower Merion. What he sees in places like Montgomery County that are leaning towards politics isn't necessarily that the gross number of minority voters is altering the political equation.
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