PHILADELPHIA — In America’s culture of perpetual politics, the end of one election cycle marks the beginning of another.
And for Philadelphia voters, that means attention is now shifting from Pennsylvania’s nationally watched U.S. Senate and governor races to next year’s mayoral election, which is already in full swing.
The race has drawn a field of candidates deeper than any in recent Philly history, with as many as eight viable contenders potentially in the mix for the May 2023 Democratic primary. The winner of the party’s nomination is all but guaranteed to be the next mayor, thanks to Democrats’ more than 7-1 voter registration advantage in the city.
Former City Councilmember Allan Domb and grocer Jeff Brown officially threw their hats in the ring this week, joining former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart and former Councilmembers Derek Green, Cherelle Parker, and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.
Two more Philly elected officials who could stake out the ideological poles in the field also generated buzz this week. Councilmember Helen Gym, a leader of the city’s progressive movement, is expected to announce a run in the next two weeks after delivering what sounded like a valediction on the Council floor Thursday. And word has spread that state Rep. Amen Brown, a tough-on-crime Democrat who has been supported by conservative billionaire Jeff Yass, may be the beneficiary of a multimillion-dollar super PAC effort next year.
On the Republican side, Councilmember David Oh has said he is considering running for mayor.
With a “deep field with a number of experienced candidates,” the race appears to be shaping up more like the 2007 mayoral election won by Michael A. Nutter than the 2015 contest won by Mayor Jim Kenney, said Philadelphia attorney Richard Hayden, a former state lawmaker who was Nutter’s campaign chair.
In 2007, Nutter started as an underdog in a five-candidate race featuring some of the biggest heavyweights in Philadelphia politics and won the nomination with a savvy campaign. In 2015, a weak field provided an opportunity for Kenney to win after entering the race at the last minute.
Hayden said that, like 2007, next year’s election may come down to a “momentum race,” meaning it could be won by any candidate who catches fire at the right moment.
“If you’re not in the top tier, you hope for a break, and things can frankly cascade or snowball on your behalf, and people say, ‘Yeah, I like that one,’” Hayden said, “and then it becomes an affirmation through word of mouth as much as your media campaign.”
An early front-runner
As the 2007 and 2015 races show, early front-runners are far from guaranteed to prevail. But the conventional wisdom around City Hall is that Parker, who was Council majority leader until she resigned to run for mayor in September, has a competitive advantage as the race gets underway.
Parker is the Democratic leader of Northwest Philadelphia’s 50th Ward, which has boasted some of the highest voter turnout rates in recent elections. While there have been no major endorsements in the race yet, Parker has close relationships with the leaders of some of Philadelphia’s most politically powerful unions, including the building trades and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union.
Parker also appears to be supported by members of Gov. Tom Wolf’s inner circle. Days after she resigned from Council in September, a Harrisburg lobbying firm with ties to Wolf hired Parker, a former state representative.
An outside spending group called Philadelphians for Our Future is gearing up to back Parker, and a recent solicitation for donations from the group listed Jeff Sheridan, Wolf’s former press secretary and 2017 campaign manager, as the contact person.
Despite those potential advantages, Parker isn’t eager to be labeled the front-runner.
“I wholeheartedly reject that early front-runner narrative,” Parker said. “To me that represents privilege, and I’ve never been privileged. I’m a Black woman. Any and everything that occurs, it occurs because of hard work and grit.”
Maneuvering in a large field
In a crowded field, candidates who have reliable voting bases have a leg up, said Mustafa Rashed, a City Hall lobbyist.
“The larger the field, the more it benefits candidates with a built-in geographical constituency and a built-in voting constituency,” he said.
That could be good for Parker, whose base of older middle-class Black voters in Northwest Philadelphia is enormously influential in city elections, and for Gym, the only candidate likely to be favored by the activist groups that have propelled local progressives’ recent successes, Rashed said.
“Cherelle’s constituents have historically traditionally been overrepresented in voting. It’s a huge advantage,” he said. “Councilmember Gym is the only one who doesn’t have a constituency that overlaps with anybody else’s. They love Helen, and they don’t love anybody else.”
Green, who like Parker hails from the storied Northwest Coalition political organization, will compete for votes on Parker’s turf.
A rumor has circulated that Green may pull out of the mayor’s race to run for controller in a special election to replace Rhynhart next year, but Green has said he’s not interested.
Council has the option to name a replacement controller ahead of the special election. According to a City Hall veteran with knowledge of the exchange, Council President Darrell L. Clarke approached Green about potentially filling that role.
Green confirmed he was asked about replacing Rhynhart, but declined to say by whom.
“An inquiry was made, and I definitively said, ‘No,’ because I resigned from City Council to run for mayor,” Green said. “This rumor keeps going out there. I guess people are threatened by my candidacy — that if I’m in the race, they can’t win.”
That appears to be a dig at Parker, who has the most to lose if Green gains momentum. Parker and Clarke worked together closely during her time as majority leader.
Clarke declined to comment.
Public safety messaging
Early polls in the race have shown that the top issue for Philadelphia voters is public safety, an unsurprising finding given the city’s gun violence crisis and widespread criticism of Kenney’s handling of it.
The candidates are beginning to show how they will make their pitches on the issue.
Quiñones Sánchez plans to propose a “robust camera program ... to build out an infrastructure around public safety.”
Parker has made her “community policing” plan a central theme of her campaign, calling for hiring 300 more cops and having them engage more deeply with the neighborhoods they patrol.
In her speech Thursday, Gym said she preferred to describe the issue as “community safety, not just public safety,” reflecting that the problem requires a more holistic approach than just boosting law enforcement.
Touting his days as a prosecutor, Green has noted he’s unique in the field for having worked in law enforcement.
Rhynhart has promised to implement the reforms outlined in a high-profile audit of the Police Department her office released last month.
And Domb said in his announcement that the city needs “to protect our communities by rebuilding trust in our law enforcement and investing in antiviolence programs that actually work.”
Rashed said the fact that most of the candidates appear focused on reducing crime and improving city services is a reflection of where the city is compared with the last open mayoral election.
“The city was in a great place [in 2015], and we were looking more at dream shots, moon shots,” said Rashed, pointing to major goals like the restoration of local control of the School District under Kenney. “We’re not as aspirational right now. We want basic services, and we want public safety.”
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