In GOP Rep. Ryan Costello's Chester County, Democrats won offices they'd last won in 1799

It’s been a very crazy election year, and we wanted to share one big under-the-radar story from November 2017. This piece originally ran Nov. 9, 2017.

Democrats are targeting three competitive House seats in Pennsylvania's Philadelphia suburbs next year, and the Nov. 7 local election results give them some very good reasons for optimism. The most eye-popping result was in Chester County, where Democrats unseated the GOP incumbents in the races for treasurer, controller, coroner, and clerk of courts. According to party officials, the last time Democrats won these offices was in 1799 … Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans, that is.

Chester County is mostly located in the 6th Congressional District, where Republican Rep. Ryan Costello (a former Chester County commissioner) won re-election against a weak Democratic challenger 57-43 as Clinton was winning his seat 48.2-47.6. Large portions of Chester are also located in the 7th District, a 49-47 Clinton seat held by Republican Rep. Pat Meehan, and the 16th District, where freshman Rep. Lloyd Smucker is more of a longshot target.

Local Democrats also had an unusually great night in Bucks County, which makes up the bulk of GOP freshman Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick's 8th District. Democrats won the offices of county sheriff, prothonotary, recorder of deeds, and controller on Tuesday —it's been more than 30 years since Democrats won any countywide office in Bucks other than county commissioner. Fitzpatrick, the brother of outgoing Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, won an expensive open seat race 54-46 last year, running well ahead of Trump's 48.2-48.0 win.

Delaware County has been a reliable blue area in presidential races for years, but local Republicans have still done well down-ballot here. However, Democrats also scored a historic win there on Tuesday when they beat a Republican in a County Council election for the first time ever, though Team Red still maintains a three-to-two edge overall. Delaware is mostly located in Meehan's 7th District, with a portion in the safely blue 1st.

One of the challenges Democrats have had in the Philadelphia suburbs for a long time is winning over voters who back Democrats in presidential races but vote Republican down the ballot. Team Blue seemed to break through in 2006 as George W. Bush's unpopularity dragged down the party when they flipped the old versions of the 7th and 8th, though then-GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach defied them in the 6th. However, the 2010 GOP wave gave the GOP their lost seats back, and the Republican legislature proceeded to make the 6th and 7th considerably redder (the 8th mostly was left alone).

Democrats hope that Trump's unpopularity will give them a shot at all three seats again even against well-funded Republican incumbents. The fact that local Democrats won local offices that stayed red even through the Bush era is at least a good sign that the voters are not only angry with national Republicans, but that they're channeling their anger out down-ballot. And if voters are really taking their rage at Trump out on Republican coroners, prothonotaries, and recorders of deeds, local GOP congressmen have a lot to worry about.