Election 2026 results are in

Happy “no more political ads” day!! 🎉 Did you have this celebration as a recurring event on your calendar after each election day? If not, now you have something to celebrate today, no matter who won.

Oops. Nevermind. I have a text from late last night reminding me that some of the races would be tight and might need expensive recounts, so could I chip in $25? 🙄

Are these people serious?! First, big fat nope! Second, any “expensive” recounts are paid for by government-funded election budgets (I.e., our tax dollars), not campaign fundraising. GTFO of my text threads with that nonsense. The political consultant industry is so out of touch. I digress…

Our local Election 2026 results

Now that the election is over, let’s discuss the results for our community and the state of Pennsylvania. Technically, votes are still being counted, but clear winners have emerged on every item on our ballot. This piece from WHYY offers a nice summary of where races stand. This site shows standalone Delaware County results.

Sizable margins make it easier to move forward without dissecting every pregnant chad. (I wasn’t old enough to vote in that election, but I surely remember it.) Hard pass on doing that again. 👎🏻

• Governor: Shapiro (60%) trounced Garrity (38%) as expected.
• U.S. House of Representatives: Mary Gay Scanlon (72%) handily beat Nick Manganaro (28%).
• Local PA-160 State House Rep: Elizabeth Moro (54%) beat Craig Williams (45%) by a fairly healthy margin.

Screenshots above from WHYY reporting as of Nov. 4, 2026.

Delaware County Open Space Referendum: The “yea” votes (76% approval) crushed it. A big win for the trees and streams (which is a big win for us). That’s a surefire mandate telling the county to invest in green spaces. Recall this has historically been very good for Chadds Ford.

Pennsylvania statewide Election 2026 results

Democrats won the Governorship and retained control of the House of Representatives. Some counts are still open and tight, but they won enough seats to declare a decisive victory in that chamber.

Shapiro and Democrats have also claimed to have won control of the State Senate, though a couple of races still haven’t been called by all outlets, so Democratic control of the chamber is not yet official. Republicans have controlled the State Senate since 1994.

Assuming the results hold as anticipated, Democrats would take a trifecta in Harrisburg. PA Spotlight shared more about what a Democratic trifecta could mean for legislative agendas at the state level.

Update: The Associated Press has called the State Senate for Democrats, so Democrats will have a trifecta in Harrisburg for the next legislative session.

One more item to note: Bethel library referendum

I want to share one more election result that wasn’t on our ballot but impacts Chadds Ford.

Bethel Township passed a referendum to increase Rachel Kohl library funding from 0.027 mills to 0.037 mills. Mills (or millage) is a rate applied to your assessed property value to determine your taxes. This referendum increases annual taxes for Bethel residents by about $3-10 per year per household, all of which goes directly to the library.

This matters to Chadds Ford for two reasons. First, it’s additional funding for our shared community space. Yeah! 🎉

Second, this leaves Chadds Ford as the only municipality served by Rachel Kohl Community Library that doesn’t pay at least $5 per capita for the library, a threshold that unlocks additional funding from the state. In short, Chadds Ford’s contribution of roughly $2.60 per person is preventing the library from receiving significant additional state funding. We should fix this.

Chadds Ford Township could increase the discretionary allocation to the library by about $10,000 per year to meet the threshold, but that’s highly unlikely. The Chadds Ford Finance Committee has toyed with recommending cuts to library funding because “people can just get books online now, so the library probably doesn’t need as much money” (not an exact quote, but darn close). Circulation and program attendance are up quite a bit in recent years, making this a grossly misinformed observation, but we’ll come back to the details another time.

Most likely, Chadds Ford will soon be asked to pass its own referendum to secure adequate library funding in perpetuity, locked in by law and not subject to the whims of whoever’s in charge each year.

📌 Let’s put a pin in this for now and celebrate “no more political ads” day today.

But Bethel residents basically put Chadds Ford on notice to pick up our funding slack for the library so the library can access additional “free” money from the state. Concord, Thornbury, and Chester Heights (the three other municipalities served by Rachel Kohl Community Library) fund annual contributions that already exceed the $5 per capita minimum threshold.