Danny Ceisler slips through a thicket of homemade signs.
“Resist ICE gestapo,” reads one of them. “Déjà vu Germany 1939,” displays another. And another placard, covered in plush, spherical ornaments, has a message for U.S. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), whose district office sits directly behind the crowd of No Kings Day protesters in Langhorne, Bucks County: “Free balls for members of Congress who have lost theirs.”
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A few hundred people are standing on a hill overlooking the exit ramp to a suburban shopping center — close enough to elicit honks and expletive-filled jeers from drivers. Ceisler, a Democratic challenger running for Bucks County sheriff, goes back and forth introducing himself with a bullhorn. “Bucks County can you hear me!?” The former Army intelligence officer proceeds to launch into a story of how he came to run for office.
“I was in the mountains of Afghanistan on a counterterrorism mission, doing exactly what I swore an oath to do, in November 2016,” Ceisler says. “It was then that I realized that the real battle to defend our Constitution wasn’t going to be fought in the mountains of Afghanistan or the deserts of Iraq: It was going to be fought at the ballot box in places like Bucks County.”
Ceisler, 33, is clean-shaven and dressed in jeans and a white button-up. He received 54,000 votes in the May primary, a record for a sheriff’s candidate in a Bucks County primary election. However, in order to win, Ceisler will have to do more than just play to the base.
As Bucks County goes, so goes the nation
Known as a solidly purple county, BucksCo has been even more fickle in the era of Donald Trump. Since Hillary Clinton won the county by less than a point in 2016, Republicans have dramatically increased their voter rolls and now narrowly outnumber Democrats. Donald Trump carried the region in 2024, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate in nearly 40 years to do so.
At the same time, Democrats have found recent success in county row offices and municipal elections, suggesting that, perhaps, Bucks County is not shifting politically as much as it’s ambivalent to both parties. That would explain why Fitzpatrick, a five-term congressman, proudly touts how he’s been ranked as the single-most bipartisan member of Congress. It also explains why Fitzpatrick, in 2022, won reelection by double digits on the same ballot where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro won by 15 points.
“It is not turning red. This is a 50-50 county. You have a lot of people who are willing to split tickets,” says Ceisler. “People in Bucks County like good government. They don’t want extremes.”
But what qualifies as extreme in today’s political environment? It’s a question at the heart of this race, and more broadly, of how voters are thinking about the country right now. For many on the left, ICE agents raiding supermarkets meets the bar. On the right, some point to protest signs equating Trump with Nazis as extremism. In the echo chamber of a country we currently live in, there seems to be no semblance of consensus. However, a voting population like that of Bucks County, in the aggregate, is about as close to a barometer that we have.
It’s a sign of the times that both candidates are essentially making the same pitch to voters … Are we slipping into authoritarianism? Vote Ceisler. Are criminals running afoul of the law? Vote Harran.
Throughout the day, travelling between No Kings Day events, Ceisler portrays his opponent, Republican Sheriff Fred Harran, as a torchbearer of radical immigration policy. One of the challenger’s go-to criticisms is that Harran has been squandering his deputies’ time and taxpayer resources, in order to raise his national profile. “Our current sheriff is actively causing harm to our community by choosing to partner with ICE, while at the same time he has over 5,000 outstanding bench warrants,” he says in Langhorne.
In May, Harran entered into a controversial partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as a 287(g) agreement. Pushed by the Trump administration, 287(g) agreements authorize local law enforcement — in this case, roughly a dozen deputies from the Bucks County Sheriff’s Office — to collaborate with ICE in a limited capacity, such as taking custody of individuals in local jails who have immigration violations, before turning them over to federal agents. The agreement also allows local law enforcement to make arrests on behalf of ICE when they have “reason to believe” the person is in the country illegally.
While the ACLU challenged the partnership in court, a judge dismissed the lawsuit a few days before the No Kings protests throughout the county. “We have one last opportunity to end this partnership with ICE, and that’s by defeating Fred Harran on November 4th,” Ceisler tells the crowd.
One thing standing in the way of a Ceisler victory? Harran’s own efforts to present himself as a protector of Bucks County against, in his words, “the lunatic left.” It’s a sign of the times that both candidates are essentially making the same pitch to voters: Pick the sensible choice. Though to a person, that’ll depend on which narrative about the nation they subscribe to. Are we slipping into authoritarianism? Vote Ceisler. Are criminals running afoul of the law? Vote Harran.
Whatever the outcome of this high-profile sheriff’s race, it will have implications for the midterm elections of 2026 and beyond. If Democrats can successfully elect a moderate, youthful candidate to a law enforcement position in Bucks County, then Ceisler will fuel arguments for why the party needs to move in that direction nationally (and subsequently, to move further away from the gerontocracy that got us here in the first place). If Republicans retain the seat, it’ll suggest that partnering with ICE is not a dealbreaker for many voters in the center.
No wonder the race is being so closely watched. “I’m scratching my head trying to figure out if there’s ever been a sheriff’s race as bigtime as this one,” says veteran GOP strategist Christopher Nicholas.
A long record vs. next-gen leader
On this warm day in October, I’m tagging along with Ceisler as he makes six different public appearances. When he’s done passing out lawn signs in Langhorne, he has a slight look of concern on his face. “I’m already losing my voice,” he says, “and it’s only the third event of the day.”
What’s more is that Ceisler needs to catch a red-eye to Dublin, Ireland. He’ll fly there to attend his brother-in-law’s wedding, where he’ll drink a little whiskey (good for the throat), then immediately return the same night — a whirlwind he completes 17 days before the election.
Ceisler met his wife during his final year of law school, in 2018, which he completed after his last deployment to Afghanistan. She was an assistant district attorney in the office of Larry Krasner, where Ceisler was a certified legal intern. They met at a DA’s office happy hour. Beyond the meet-cute, Ceisler does not have many positive things to say about his time working for Krasner — especially from the perspective of organizational leadership.
“I’m scratching my head trying to figure out if there’s ever been a sheriff’s race as bigtime as this one.” — Christopher Nicholas, GOP strategist
“Krasner would just haphazardly put out a policy memo that wasn’t well thought out, and it would not be enforced uniformly,” says Ceisler, reflecting on his time interning there. “Frankly, there was chaos.”
The Krasner criticism is notable, because it dovetails with Ceisler’s pitch as a moderate Democrat in the law enforcement arena. He’s fashioned himself as a different sort of “resistance” to the Trump administration than what Krasner has stood for: more willing to build bridges and focus on meat-and-potatoes issues than to push for left-wing reforms. Ceisler insists that he’s focused on the core responsibilities of the sheriff’s office, which includes the transportation of prisoners to and from courthouses, executing arrest warrants, and managing sheriff’s sales.
“Nobody in the army knew that I was a Democrat,” he says. “I really enjoyed taking a group of men and women, along with a limited amount of resources, and getting the best out of them to accomplish a mission.”
Ceisler has kept public safety as the North Star of his professional career. He enlisted in the Army at 18 before training to become a military intelligence officer and then serving on an elite counterterrorism unit. Then, after graduating from Temple Law School, he worked as a trial lawyer at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, a civil injury law firm where he mostly handled cases representing victims of sexual assault. He later served on the Pentagon’s Covid-19 Crisis Management Team, which was followed by an appointment in Governor Shapiro’s administration. Ceisler worked for the Governor as a senior public safety official until early 2025, a few months before declaring himself as a candidate.
One of his mentors, former Bucks County Congressman Patrick Murphy (also a groomsman at Ceisler’s wedding), views the Democratic challenger as a fresh face that the Democratic Party desperately needs right now. “Danny is a next generation leader,” says Murphy. “During these defining moments in our history, like this one, we need to look for leaders in our backyards — not in Washington.”
Although Ceisler moved to Bucks County in 2020, he’s never been a cop or elected official there, something his opponent is quick to raise. “He’s a newcomer to Bucks County,” says Harran, emphasizing his opponent’s roots in Philadelphia. “I don’t flip back and forth. It’s very simple for me — this guy is a pancake.”
Taking politics out of public safety is the mantra of Ceisler’s campaign. And on that charge, his opponent agrees. Harran says that he, too, would like to expel national politics from the realm of local public safety — but he claims that Ceisler is the one bringing those concerns into the race. “He doesn’t have an interest in being sheriff. He has interest in something else,” says Harran, hinting at a pursuit of higher office.
Harran is especially irked by the depiction of his cooperation with ICE. The fears about the 287(g) agreement, he says, are vastly overblown.
“I’m not the immigration police. If they’ve crossed over into the country improperly, that’s not my area. I’m only utilizing this initiative to turn over individuals that have already had due process and have committed crimes. We’re not talking about people that are working. We’re not talking about people that are fleeing another country. We’re not talking about good human beings,” he says.
“People in Bucks County like good government. They don’t want extremes.” — Danny Ceisler, Democratic candidate for Bucks County sheriff
In response, Ceisler says, “It’s not what he has said, but it’s what he has signed.” After the campaign, if Harran gets reelected, Ceisler fears there would be nothing stopping the sheriff from utilizing 287(g) much more broadly. “He’s going to run hog wild with it.”
Despite attempts to distance himself from Trump, Harran, at times, seems to borrow a page from the President’s playbook — ginning up fears about big city crime as a means of casting doubts about his opponent. For example, after he cites Ceisler’s Philadelphia roots, Harran takes a bold leap. “Did you see what happened with that poor girl [Kada Scott] who got killed?” he asks, out of nowhere. “We need a strong law and order team, not a weak one in Bucks County. This is not on-the-job training.”
Harran, who spent more than three decades as a policeman in Bensalem before being elected as sheriff in 2021, believes that voters will ultimately side with a known commodity.
“My record of 39 years speaks for itself,” says Harran. “He has no record. He doesn’t have 39 seconds of law enforcement experience in the county.”
“I have no relationship with the White House.”
As a 16-year-old, Ceisler began his political career as an intern for Patrick Murphy, who was running for Congress at the same age his mentee is now. Murphy believes Ceisler’s the sort of no-nonsense candidate that connects with the ethos of a purple county.
“These voters respond to folks out there in the community getting things done,” says Murphy. “Not someone trying to kowtow to the president or rounding up people at Home Depot, waitresses, and farm workers.”
While this is Ceisler’s first full race — he was a candidate for Bucks County district attorney in 2020, but he ended his campaign prematurely once he was called up from the Army Reserve, following the January 6 insurrection — Ceisler is far from a political outsider. He is the son of Larry Ceisler, a consummate insider and founder of Ceisler Media, a public affairs firm where the younger Ceisler has previously worked.
While the challenger’s lifelong proximity to power could be an asset in the eyes of some voters, for others it could be a turnoff. Despite attempts to portray Harran as a Trumper, his complete record suggests otherwise.
Who is Fred Harran?
Not only does Harran deny being a Trump supporter (though he did endorse him), he says that the 287(g) agreement will only apply to hardened criminals. “I have no relationship with the White House,” Harrans says. “I’ve been to the White House under two Presidents: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.”
As the public safety director of Bensalem (the police department fell under his purview), Harran was known as a forward thinker and community-centered public official. In Bensalem, where he worked for more than three decades, he helped launch a mental health co-responders program. Harran worked closely with the Bucks County NAACP on improving the protocols for reporting police misconduct. In the summer of 2020, he marched with Black Lives Matter protesters.
“The Democrat is a savvy political operative, but the Sheriff has a terrific law enforcement background in Bensalem,” says Nicholas, the Republican consultant. Harran’s track record, he adds, proves a point that Ceisler himself is making: Voters in Bucks County are willing to ignore the party line in favor of pragmatism.
“To me, Bensalem, in addition to being a melting pot, is a microcosm of the county,” he says. “It’s a Democratic population where Republicans keep getting elected. Why? Because Republicans have been good stewards of people’s tax dollars and offered good services.”
“My record of 39 years speaks for itself. He has no record. He doesn’t have 39 seconds of law enforcement experience in the county.” — Fred Harran, Bucks County Sheriff
While that certainly has been Harran’s reputation for most of his career, since being elected as sheriff in 2021, he’s taken on a more combative persona. Frequently, he’s locked horns with the county commissioners, a majority of whom are Democrats. It’s led some to wonder if Harran, who holds a degree in theater (in addition to ones in political science and criminology), isn’t putting on a show for a national audience.
The Sheriff himself insists he’s the same guy that he’s always been. In fact, as public safety director in Bensalem, he threw his support behind signing a 287(g) agreement in 2018, though it was never signed due to opposition from the town’s city council. He rejects the notion that he’s suddenly become a different person. “If you can find one person who says that Fred Harran said he’s going to do something, and then he instead does something else, I would like to meet that person — because they don’t exist,” he says.
When I ask him about the 5,000 outstanding arrest warrants that Ceisler keeps bringing up, Harran scoffs. “What he doesn’t tell you is that when I took office, in January 2022, there were 7,800 warrants. “You’re talking about somebody who doesn’t know anything about law enforcement or policing.”
(An article published earlier this week in the Bucks County Courier Times suggested that Harran’s claim may be misleading.)
Voting in the age of anxiety
A lot has been made of the Democratic Party’s need for fresh faces, a problem laid bare when Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race last year. In different parts of the country, including Philadelphia, that call has been swiftly answered by progressive and Democratic socialist candidates. But that brand of politics is not for everyone.
“As the rest of the collar counties have trended more Democratic, Bucks County has flipped from blue to red,” says James Markley, communications director for the Pennsylvania GOP. “The left keeps moving left and we have done a great job of capturing former Democrats who are supporting the party of common sense.”
Ceisler is banking on the fact that people no longer see it that way, especially now that Trump is back in the White House. Despite Harran’s attacks, Ceisler says that he’ll be laser-focused on the core responsibilities of the job. “They are not sexy, but they are crucial for the justice system to run effectively,” says Ceisler.
The Ceisler campaign has already taken what is normally a ho-hum race and turned it into one that’s being watched across the state — and beyond. That’s a credit to his operation, charisma and messaging. But will any of that ultimately determine who crosses the finish line first?
Or, will the determining factor instead be the age of anxiety that we’re living in?
The outcome of the Bucks County sheriff’s race may not come down to the candidates themselves, but the existential competition that’s been playing out — in the media, as well as politics writ large — between two gloomy visions of the country under Trump: that law enforcement, including ICE, is quelling chaos in our communities — or that they are causing it.
“People are extraordinarily angry,” says Ceisler. “There’s tremendous energy and enthusiasm to take action on what they’re seeing on the news. And this is how people are able to fight back. It’s mounting a resistance at the local level, where, frankly, elected officials affect people’s lives more than their congressmen and senators.”
MORE ON THE 2025 ELECTION
Democratic candidate for Bucks County sheriff Danny Ceisler speaks to a group in Langhorne, Bucks County in October 2025.
