Suburbs tighten up

Republicans kept the courthouse by 1,484 votes. Bucks Democrats, energized and aided by freshman U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, were seeking to win a majority on the Board of Commissioners for the first time since 1983.

Toward the end of the race, the Democrats came out against a $140 million proposal for a new courthouse as too expensive, though they had been in favor of it.

"I got a sense there was a trust issue," said Mike Walsh, the GOP campaign manager in Bucks. "The national mood remains not so pro-Republican - the governor in Kentucky was voted out Tuesday, and Republicans lost the Virginia state Senate. We held the courthouses, but it took a lot of work."

No less a political analyst than Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he expected his fellow Democrats to keep knocking on the door in suburbia.

"What you're seeing is the local Republicans are still the Rockefeller-Scranton wing of the party, fiscally conservative and moderate on social issues," Rendell said. "But the margins they won by are radically different than 10 or 15 years ago. There are no longer any local landslides."

Inquirer staff writers Cheryl McEvoy and Nancy Petersen contributed to this article.