Why the mayor’s race is so wide open

Welcome to the third edition of The 100th Mayor, a newsletter for anyone and everyone interested in the 2023 Philadelphia mayor’s race.

The all-important Democratic primary is in 10 weeks 🕰️, and the election is still very much up for grabs. In this week’s newsletter, we’ll explain one reason the race remains so wide open, take a look at the priorities of Philadelphia’s most seasoned voters, and explain how the city budget works.

You can keep track of all of The Inquirer’s coverage of the mayor’s race and all things politics by following this account on Twitter.

There are 70 days 🗓 until the primary.

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— Anna Orso and Sean Collins Walsh (@anna_orso and @sbcmw)

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There isn’t a secret recipe for winning elections in Philadelphia. But in recent years, winners of some of the most high-profile citywide races, such as Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner, have built similar coalitions with two important voting blocs: residents of politically organized middle-class Black neighborhoods and more progressive voters, who are predominantly white and highly educated.

In 2015, Kenney benefited from the support of progressive activists who liked his stances on issues like labor, LGBTQ rights, and immigration. But he also won crucial endorsements from luminaries of the Northwest Coalition, a storied Black political organization with influence in some of the city’s highest-turnout wards.

So why wouldn’t one of the candidates running this year simply court those two constituencies? Those groups are unlikely to unite because each has separate horses in the race.

Former Councilmember Helen Gym is a leader of the city’s progressive movement, 🔑 and former Councilmember Cherelle Parker (pictured above) came up through the Northwest Coalition and is the Democratic leader of the 50th Ward, which boasts some of the highest turnout rates in recent elections.

While those are strong bases, they likely are not enough to propel a candidate to victory on their own.

That opens the door to other paths. Several candidates, for instance, don’t have a natural geographical base, but are trying to appeal to voters across the city who are looking for a City Hall outsider.

They include Jeff Brown, a grocer who has never held elected office; former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, who gave up a career on Wall Street to help city government; and Maria Quiñones Sánchez, who served on Council for more than a decade despite being opposed by the Democratic machine.

💥 Bottom line: It’s anybody’s game, and momentum will shift over the next two months. Last week, it was Parker who grabbed headlines when she snagged another major union endorsement.

In Philadelphia and elsewhere, senior citizens are an incredibly important voting bloc thanks to their relatively high turnout rates. In the last two mayoral races, voters who were 50 or older made up more than 60% of the electorate.

The Pennsylvania chapter of the AARP set out to discover what’s on the minds of Philly’s more seasoned voters with a recent poll of 50+ residents that they shared with yours truly. One finding really jumped out: More than half of Philadelphia seniors said they had considered moving out of the city within the last year.

Like everyone else, they’re worried about public safety 🔑 first and foremost. Respondents also cited cost-of-living concerns and struggles to find homes that will allow them to live independently as reasons to consider ditching the city.

Another finding: Older Philadelphians are not happy with how City Hall has been addressing these issues. About 54% of respondents said they disapproved of Kenney’s job performance 📉, with 38% approving. Council’s approval rating was also upside down, with 46% saying they disapproved of lawmakers’ performance and 38% giving them a thumbs up.

For Kate Bridges, a senior research advisor with the AARP, that means city elected officials who are running for mayor will likely have some explaining to do if they want to win over seniors.

“There are a lot of former Council people that are running right now,” Bridges said, adding that success for them could mean “being able to establish themselves and figure out what do they need to say to say that they’re going to be different.”

You think these are divided times? Philadelphia’s 69th mayor, Alexander Henry, led the city through the Civil War, recruiting troops for the Union while also quelling anti-Confederate riots at home. Henry hosted Abraham Lincoln on Honest Abe’s route to his inauguration ceremony in 1861 and later helped raise funds for a monument to Lincoln, still standing in Fairmount Park.

Henry was elected as a member of “The People’s Party,” but served his next two terms as a member of the then-new Republican Party, making him the first in a long line of GOP mayors who dominated Philly politics for a century. Other things we learned about Henry:

Tell us which mayor you’d like to see featured next.

— Julia Terruso

So Mayor Jim Kenney unveiled his final budget proposal last week🔑, which we know sounds v dry. But budget proposals could also be referred to as “how a mayor gets s— done.”

As Philly politicos know, March is when the mayor lays out his or her plans for how the city will bring in revenue and spend billions of dollars for the next year, kicking off what’s known as budget season in City Hall. It’s a time of year that can make or break an administration as the mayor tries to push their biggest priorities through City Council.

The next mayor will take office in January 2024, and just two months later, he or she will have their best chance of the year to make their agenda a reality. Kenney’s first budget proposal included the soda tax, universal pre-K, and his community schools plan, which are still among his signature policies.

While the mayor’s most recent proposal was a bit more status quo, it still included a couple notable proposals🔑, including a novel plan to make transit more accessible.

Question: At a recent forum, the mayoral candidates were asked if they play a musical instrument. Only one said they still do. Who was it?

A) Derek Green

B) Jeff Brown

C) Helen Gym

D) Maria Quiñones Sánchez

Find out if you know the answer.

Awkward. 😬 Democratic mayoral candidate Amen Brown didn’t appear at a mayoral forum on gun violence hosted last week by WHYY. The state representative also didn’t attend one the next night that was about the arts, and he’s been absent from a handful of other campaign trail events where the rest of the contenders appeared.

Thanks for joining us for this week’s edition of The 100th Mayor newsletter. We’ll see you next week, when we may still be a lil groggy from the beginning of Daylight Saving time.

— Anna and Sean