It’s still (almost) anyone’s game | 100th mayor newsletter
It’s unusual for this many candidates to be this close with just two weeks to go.
Accusations, polls, door-knockers, and lots and lots of TV ads — it’s crunch time in the mayor’s race.
This week, we’ll give you some historical context for how unusual it is for the race to be this competitive with two weeks to go. We’ll also take a look at the undecided voters who may decide the outcome and introduce you to the “old Dutch cleanser.”
There’s just 14 days 🗓 left until election day. Get the information you need about every candidate.
— Anna Orso and Sean Collins Walsh
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Twenty and under
The mayor’s race is unbelievably competitive.
It’s not unusual for an election to be this close with just two weeks to go. But it is extraordinary for it to be this close among so many candidates so late in the game 🕰️.
There has only been one public, independent poll in the mayor’s race, and it was released Friday by the Committee of Seventy, Philly’s storied business-backed good government group.
The upshot? It’s still anyone’s game. The top five candidates all landed within the credibility interval, which is similar to a margin of error, with former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart at 18% and grocer Jeff Brown rounding out the top tier at 11%.
By this time in 2015, the last open mayoral election, Jim Kenney had built a substantial lead over State Sen. Tony Williams 📉 and never looked back.
The polls were tighter in the final weeks of the 2007 race, but it was becoming clear that it was a two-man competition between businessman Tom Knox and former Councilmember Michael A. Nutter, whose late surge 📈 propelled him to the mayor’s office.
And in 1999, John F. Street, the former Council president, maintained a narrow polling lead in the closing weeks of his victory in the primary over Marty Weinberg and John White Jr.
The fact that this year’s race appears to be essentially a five-way tie at the moment is remarkable. It may come down to undecided voters. More on them below.
Click here to read more about that Seventy poll — and others commissioned by more biased sources.
Spotlight on: Taxes
Philadelphia’s tax structure is one of the most hotly debated issues in City Hall.
The business community has long complained about the city’s relatively high wage tax and complicated business income and receipts tax. Progressives have been calling for the city to focus on raising more revenue instead of cutting rates. And a ton of residents have problems with their property tax assessments.
Rebecca Rhynhart and Allan Domb have similar visions for the city’s tax structure, and both support continuing the city’s years-long practice of lowering the wage and business taxes.
Domb also has pushed to exempt more low-income Philadelphians from paying the wage tax, and wants the city to do a better job collecting money from tax delinquents.
Rhynhart has said her administration would push for the city’s large nonprofits, which are exempt from property taxes, to contribute to the city on a recurring basis.
Helen Gym has declined to take specific stances on taxes throughout the campaign, saying she will appoint a commission to study the issue comprehensively if she becomes mayor. But Gym’s record offers some clues as to where that commission is likely to land.
Gym last year voted against cuts to the wage and business taxes, and has endorsed the creation of a new “wealth tax” on financial investments. She also supports shifting the split of property tax revenue so the school district gets more while the city’s general fund gets less.
Cherelle Parker has not made changing the tax structure a big part of her campaign, but has voted in favor of incremental cuts to the wage and business taxes while stressing the need to protect longtime homeowners from rapidly increasing property taxes.
Jeff Brown made his first appearance on Philly’s political scene as a prominent opponent of Mayor Jim Kenney’s tax on sweetened beverages. On the campaign trail, however, Brown has said he will not prioritize repealing the tax, noting that the city could soon be in a revenue crunch if predictions of an impending recession come true.
Brown is the only candidate who has centered property taxes in his talking points, calling for a cap on increases in the levy. Despite individual complaints about the accuracy of assessments, Philly overall has a relatively low property tax, and capping its growth would make it more difficult to cut other taxes.
The 81st mayor of Philadelphia: Rudolph Blankenburg
You know the old story: German-born language enthusiast moves to America, falls in love with a Quaker suffragist and goes on to become mayor of Philadelphia.
Well, now you do!
Rudolph Blankenburg was working as a textile manufacturer in Philadelphia when he met Lucretia Longshore, who was president of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Movement and whose politics he very much shared.
Blankenburg remains one of the more influential but lesser-known reformers to run the city. Here’s are some more fun facts about him:
Blankenburg was a county commissioner before he was elected mayor in 1911 on the Keystone-Democratic ticket. The coalition was organized to fight Republican corruption, and his win briefly interrupted the GOP machine’s stranglehold on City Hall. Republicans reclaimed the mayor’s office in 1916.
Blankenburg had some pretty great nicknames. (Why don’t we do that anymore?) He was known as “The Old War Horse of Reform” and “The Old Dutch Cleanser.” Get it? Because he was cleaning the place up?
He changed the civil service system to make employment based on merit and ended a policy of ward leaders assessing the effectiveness of their own police officers.
There’s an elementary school named after him in the Mill Creek neighborhood of Philadelphia.
— Julia Terruso
Data Dive: What we know about undecided voters
While five candidates are locked in a race for the Democratic nomination, the poll commissioned by Committee of Seventy found that 1 in 5 voters remain undecided, leaving a big chunk of the electorate up for grabs in the final few weeks. Here’s what we know about them:
Of the 20% of respondents in the Seventy poll who were undecided, two-thirds were women and nearly half were Black.
A poll commissioned by Parker’s campaign this month had an almost identical finding: 22% of respondents were undecided — 67% of them were women, and half were Black.
Parker’s campaign thinks this is a clear advantage for her. She’s the only viable Black candidate remaining in the race, and has the support of much of the city’s Black political establishment. They think undecided voters will disproportionately break for Parker.
On the other hand, it could be a red flag 🚩 for Parker’s campaign: If a large swath of Black women haven’t decided yet that they are with her, will they in the coming days? Other candidates see an opening here and are campaigning hard in Northwest Philadelphia and other neighborhoods with high concentrations of likely Black voters.
What else we’re reading
A majority of Philly Democratic voters said they want ranked-choice voting. What would that mean for the mayor’s race?
There was a mystery involving an unnamed figure in the lawsuit against a super PAC supporting Jeff Brown. Our colleague solved it. 🔑
The next mayor will be in charge of the police department. And the families of homicide victims are demanding change.
Campaign events this week
Debate on LGBTQ issues: The Mazzoni Center is hosting a mayoral debate tonight at 7 p.m. on issues facing marginalized communities. It will be televised on PCN.
KYW Newsradio program: On Thursday at 8 a.m., five of the candidates will be on KYW for a 90-minute “Breakfast with the Candidates” special.
Scenes from the campaign trail
Ed Rendell, the former mayor and governor, yucked it up with Rebecca Rhynhart at an event last week in which he endorsed her to become the 100th mayor. That’s her third endorsement from former Philly mayors, following Michael A. Nutter and John F. Street.
It’s uncommon for sitting mayors to make endorsements in the election to replace them, so we’re not expecting Jim Kenney to jump in the fray. W. Wilson Goode Sr. generally doesn’t make endorsements in city elections, saying it would be a problem because he gets city grant money for his philanthropic work. That leaves only Bill Green III among living former mayors who we haven’t heard from, but may. At the endorsement event, Rendell mentioned that he talked to Green, who might want to “do something.”
It’s hard to believe, but next week’s newsletter will be the last before the primary! Mail balloting has already begun, so please encourage folks you know to make their voices heard and make a plan to vote.
— Anna and Sean