Philly DA Larry Krasner is running for a third term, sources say

District Attorney Larry Krasner had a, let’s say, tumultuous second term. House Republicans impeached him, but a trial is on hold for who knows how long. The Democratic governor signed legislation stripping him of some prosecutorial power. He’s a favorite topic on the right.

But maybe Krasner is a glutton for punishment?

Sources told Clout that Krasner is planning to run for a third term, and we hear he’s already told some of his staff as much. That should settle the chatter in Philly’s political class of late about whether the DA might move on to greener pastures, be they a run for higher office, the lucrative speaker circuit, or his former life as a civil rights attorney.

Krasner is being publicly tight-lipped about his intentions and probably won’t make an official announcement about the May 2025 primary election for some time.

But we should note that running for a third term is a big deal. Over the last 70 years, just one Philadelphia district attorney has served for more than two terms: Lynne Abraham, the Democrat known as “one tough cookie” who was the city’s prosecutor for four terms.

Now the question is: Who is going to run against him?

Clout keeps hearing one name floated as a challenger: former City Councilmember Derek S. Green, a Democrat who last year ran for mayor and was recently written about in this space for registering as a lobbyist.

He told Clout on Thursday he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run.

Rumors about Green contending for DA have been rampant since the mayor’s race and even before. He’s a former assistant district attorney who’d position himself as tougher on crime than Krasner. Green last year said that if he were elected mayor, he’d establish a process for police to circumvent the DA and have federal authorities prosecute gun crimes in the city.

Krasner did not like that, saying at the time: “Some of the candidates for mayor are not in touch with Philadelphians.”

If Green did decide to make a run, it could make things complicated for the city’s power brokers, most notably the Northwest Coalition and its most high-profile member, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

The political family backed Krasner and helped lift him to victory over a crowded field when he first ran in 2017. It was a big deal at the time. But Green hails from the Northwest Coalition himself and was a close aide to one of its leaders, former Councilmember Marian B. Tasco.

Perhaps Clout is getting ahead of ourselves.

If it looks like a campaign ad, walks like a campaign ad, and talks like a campaign ad, is it a campaign ad?

According to Parker’s administration, it’s an anti-littering public service announcement.

That’s the explanation Clout got this week when we asked the city about a television commercial running on cable that features our mayor introducing herself and saying she’s committed to making Philly “the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation,” which happens to have been her campaign slogan.

It’s illegal to use taxpayer resources for political activity, and the ad likely stops well short of that. But the use of Parker’s slogan and images of her at a campaign event were more than enough to raise Clout’s eyebrows.

The ad includes footage of Parker glad-handing with constituents and sweeping up trash. And it shows the mayor speaking at a 2022 fundraiser that was her first major event of the mayoral campaign. Clout knows exactly which fundraiser it was because the back of Clout’s head is in the commercial. Finally, our big break!

The city bought the commercials along with ads on radio, in print, online, and at SEPTA facilities such as subway platforms. Parker’s spokesperson Joe Grace said the cost of the “one Philly” campaign is $360,120, a large portion of which came from a state grant for public education on waste reduction and pollution prevention.

Grace pointed out that the city has been running anti-littering ad campaigns for 20 years, including last year, when the previous administration spent about $190,000 on them.

As for the footage from Parker’s campaign? Grace said it was taken from a YouTube channel so it’s in the public domain.

It’s certainly not the first time a taxpayer-funded ad felt a little political. Don’t think we forgot about former U.S. attorney Bill McSwain spending $75,000 to put his name and face on billboards before he ran for governor, or the umpteen City Council members who have touted their work on city letterhead right around campaign season.

But, hey, they were all just PSAs.

We’ll be honest. We were ready to throw some severe shade the president’s way when we saw that he stopped at a Sheetz during his swing through Pennsylvania this week and ordered something called “fryz.”

No. 1, ew.

No. 2, why? Who told Joe Biden that ticking off the largest city in the commonwealth by eating at our rival convenience store was a viable campaign strategy?

But our minds were changed Thursday.

At about 3 p.m. after a stop in North Philly, POTUS joined Mayor Parker for a stop at the Wawa on Chestnut Street in Center City for some pre-Air Force One grub. (We’ll note that is the fancy Wawa that we like to refer to as the je ne sais quoi-wa.)

According to reporters on scene, Biden got an Italian hoagie with American cheese (odd), a black-and-white milkshake, a dozen pretzels, a dozen assorted pastries, two orders of mozzarella sticks, two bottles of Coke, and a low-fat, strawberry banana yogurt specifically labeled for its probiotic properties.

This is one flip-flop Clout will allow.

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.

Inquirer staff writers Sean Collins Walsh, Emily Bloch, and Julia Terruso contributed to this article.