🎆 There may be fireworks this week | The 100th Mayor newsletter

It’s a busy week in Philly as the mayor’s race enters its final three weeks and five candidates still have a shot at running away with this thing.

There’ll be a televised debate, a poll release, and a couple of rallies. There may be fireworks (figuratively, we think). All that comes after news broke Monday involving the ethics board and a super PAC backing one of the top contenders.

Today’s newsletter will dive into endorsements, ca$h money, and what we can really learn from a single poll.

There’s just 21 days 🗓 left until Election Day. Get the information you need about every candidate here. Let’s get into it.

— Anna Orso and Sean Collins Walsh

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If you’re one of the people really closely following the race, you might have noticed that we don’t have a ton of data about where it stands, at least compared to a presidential or U.S. Senate race where there’s a lot of polling and talking heads discussing it.

Campaigns do polls from time-to-time, but they’re unlikely to publish them if they don’t look good for their candidate. Independent polling is much more reliable — and the mayor’s race is going to get its first on Friday, when the Committee of Seventy releases a poll.

We chatted with pollsters Berwood Yost, of Franklin and Marshall, and Chris Borick, of Muhlenberg, about what we can — and can’t — learn from a single poll. Here’s what you should know:

1. Primary polls are really variable. Primary polls aren’t nearly as good at predicting winners as general-election polls. Voters are more likely to waffle on who they’re voting for without the power of party affiliation, and there is still a lot of money left to be spent on this race. Voters can and will change their minds as we get closer to Election Day.

2. Mind the margin of error. So let’s say Joe Schmo leads Joe Blow by 3 points, and the margin of error is plus-or-minus 5 points. The pollster’s best guess is that Schmo is ahead — but either candidate could actually be in the lead. It’s still just an estimate based on a sample of the electorate.

3. It would be better to have another poll. Without another poll closer to Election Day that we can compare results to, the pollsters don’t recommend you base your vote on just one poll.

Want more details on polling and why there hasn’t been much in this race? Nerd out with us here.

The Philadelphia Land Bank is a kind of obscure bureaucracy that was created to sell off public, vacant land or give it to nonprofits to create public goods, especially affordable housing. But there are long wait times, and its processes have interrupted by members of City Council (who have their own priorities🔑).

During a mayoral forum last week, three candidates — Helen Gym, Allan Domb, and Rebecca Rhynhart — pledged to make better use of the city’s vacant land and improve the land bank. Domb said its performance has been “dismal,” and Gym said it has “no accountability.”

Jeff Brown has a more scorched-Earth proposal. He said during a forum the next day that the land bank should be shut down and its assets sold off to Black and brown developers.

Gym said that isn’t a viable vision for affordability, and the conversation devolved. Brown said Gym “knows nothing about real estate” and Gym said Brown “sounds like an angry man.” Here’s a rundown of the heated exchange.

Here on the left is the late Mayor James H. J. Tate, who’s standing with the former Eagles President Jerry Wolman at a groundbreaking ceremony in 1966 for what would become the Spectrum. Tate is the longest serving mayor in Philly history — he was the Council president and took over the mayor’s office when his predecessor, Richardson Dilworth, resigned to run for governor. Then Tate won two terms in his own right.

Here are some things to know about Philly’s 92nd mayor:

Outside groups have already spent more than $5 million to boost four candidates for Philadelphia mayor — and that’s based on records filed with the city when there was more than a month left until Election Day.

That’s a chunk of cash, especially when you consider that some of the groups have pumped more money into the race than candidates. Here are some factoids:

There’s more to break down about how big money is influencing this race. Dive into the numbers with us.

Last week, Anna did a Reddit AMA and got some great questions about the mayor’s race. One reader asked: What’s the biggest endorsement still up for grabs?

The answer is that there aren’t too many! The only major municipal union that has yet to make an endorsement is the firefighters union. There are also a few current and former elected officials who haven’t made a pick, including Mayor Jim Kenney, Gov. Josh Shapiro, former Mayor Ed Rendell, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and both Democratic senators. It’s possible they won’t endorse at all — perhaps depends on how popular the campaigns think those people are.

Read through some of the best questions and answers from the AMA here.

📮 Have a question about the mayor’s race? Let us know, and you may see an answer in an upcoming newsletter. Email us here.

Question: It’s not all that common for mayors to retain the police commissioner when they take over. Who was the last mayor to keep the commish around?

A) John Street

B) Ed Rendell

C) Frank Rizzo

D) Richardson Dilworth

Find out if you know the answer.🔑

Domb and Gym were chitchatting a bit before last week’s televised mayoral forum. Perhaps they were discussing how many weeks are left of this thing? (Three, but who’s counting?)

Thanks for hanging with us this week. You can follow along on Twitter tonight as we cover the final TV debate of the campaign. Things could get spicy. 🌶️

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