Joe Khan becomes first Democrat to be elected Bucks County district attorney since the 1800s

Joe Khan has declared victory over Republican incumbent District Attorney Jennifer Schorn, becoming the first Democrat to be elected district attorney in the county since the 1800s.

Khan garnered more than 54% of the vote, according to the county’s unofficial election results.

Bucks County voters elected him, Khan said, because they “just want good government.”

“They want people who are going to show up and fight for them,” he told WHYY News. “And we ran a campaign that was authentic, about me being a dad who was just trying to build a better world for his kids. And I think that’s what connected with people.”

The former Bucks County solicitor ran an aggressive campaign, criticizing Schorn for not convening a grand jury investigation into child abuse allegations at a Central Bucks elementary school, and her decision to not prosecute a pipeline leak in Upper Makefield Township that was identified earlier this year.

“During this campaign, I had the pleasure [of] being on an amazing team,” Schorn told WHYY News in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “My fellow candidates are wonderful and highly qualified people who truly love their community. Some were very unfairly portrayed during this campaign. There were untruths and misinformation being pedaled regularly, but we ran an honest campaign. I am proud to have gone through this with them.”

The historic victory for a Democrat in Bucks County, which went to President Donald Trump in last year’s elections by a few hundred votes, is a sign of change, Khan said.

“We’re in one of the darkest periods of American history, certainly in my lifetime,” he said. “The fact that Bucks County looked at what was going on and decided to elect the first-ever Democrat as district attorney, voting for a Pakistani kid who grew up in Northeast Philly and is just trying to make sure that the public schools that his kids go to are going to be safe, I think that’s going to send a beacon of hope across the country and maybe the world, that we’re going to get out of this, that America is coming back, and that we’re going to get back on the right path, which is what America has always done.”

Khan is not the first-ever Democrat to be elected Bucks County District Attorney. The last Democratic DA assumed the position in 1891.

Khan told WHYY News that as district attorney, one of his top priorities will be addressing the “environmental catastrophe” in Upper Makefield, where a jet fuel leak contaminated people’s drinking water in January.

“We’re going to make sure we rebuild this office to address the challenges that we face in the 21st century to keep people safe,” he said. “And that’s going to begin by making good on my promise to have a DA’s office that enforces every person’s right to a clean environment here in Bucks County.”

Khan, 50, graduated from University of Chicago Law School. He served as an assistant district attorney at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and as a federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

He currently lives in Doylestown with his two children, whom he cited as his main motivation for running for district attorney.

Democrats swept all five of the county’s row office races in an off-year election that saw close to 50% voter turnout. Khan said the victories are a sign of what the party can accomplish going forward.

“I think we won big, and I think that this is a message of inspiration to folks all across the country about how we need to approach these elections,” he said. “Being true to our values, meeting people where they are, and being authentic when we show up to speak with them.”

Schorn said that although she lost the election, she has “had such an overwhelming outpouring of support that words cannot adequately express just how much it means.”

She credited her colleagues in the DA’s Office with the work they do, and urged the county to raise their pay.

“Every day, I see first hand what the prosecutors in my office do. They too see and hear the unimaginable. When the need arises, they go out to murder scenes, fatal crashes, attend autopsies and child forensic interviews where one cannot unsee or unhear what was seen and heard. Yet, they power through and work for months on end until the case reaches a conclusion in the courtroom.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Joe Khan is not the first Democrat elected Bucks County district attorney.