We answered reader questions about the 2023 mayoral primary

There’s about a month to go until Philadelphia’s May 16 primary election, and the next few weeks will be intense as mayoral candidates jockey for votes. The winner is all but certain to become the next mayor, given Democrats hold a huge voter registration advantage in the city.

With nine Democrats on the ballot, there’s a lot to consider. Who are the candidates? What are their potential paths to victory? Where do they stand on the issues that matter most to Philadelphians?

With this in mind, The Inquirer hosted an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) in collaboration with the r/philadelphia subreddit to answer readers’ most-asked questions about the upcoming election.

Here is a selection of Inquirer reporter Anna Orso’s answers.

The short answer is no, there have not been any independent, public polls that have measured voter attitudes on each of these candidates compared to one another. The campaigns conduct their own polls from time-to-time, which they sometimes share with us privately. We’d of course prefer they were on the record, but we take every opportunity to learn more about the race, even if it’s “on background” – meaning we can’t directly cite it in a story – because it helps us frame our coverage. What they are showing is that five candidates – Jeff Brown, Gym, Domb, Rhynhart, and Parker – are somewhere between 10 and 20%. We see those five as the top contenders, and any of them could win. If there were polls showing one candidate pulling away from the pack, you can bet we’d have seen them by now. We haven’t.

I’m no expert on transit and infrastructure, but I will say I did phone a friend — my great colleague Jake Blumgart — before answering this one. Here’s our joint answer:

The mayor doesn’t have a ton of direct control over SEPTA and public transit. It’s run by a state board and gets a lot of its funding from federal streams. The city does provide a subsidy to SEPTA in its annual budget. This year, it’s proposed to be $110M, a tiny fraction of SEPTA’s $1.6B operating budget. In fact, that’s one way that the city and other counties could make a difference — SEPTA has some of the lowest budgetary support from local partners of any big city mass transit agency.

One of the biggest things the municipal government can do is improve the streets themselves. Sure, the city can’t exactly control the buses or trolleys, but they can improve the streets they run on by prioritizing bus routes for streets improvements, advocating for stronger parking enforcement, and the like.

There’s also, in theory, more the city could do around zoning, but that comes down largely to City Council and district Council members who are responsible for most land use decisions. For example, the city could designate heavy rail and regional rail stations as transit-oriented development zones and that could boost ridership in the long-term.

There aren’t too many! The most consequential endorsement that was outstanding was settled last week when the police union endorsed Jeff Brown. 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.

The last thing I’ll note is that wards (in many cases, ward leaders) may make endorsements. This matters on election day, when endorsed candidates are placed on the so-called “sample ballots” you get handed at the polls.

This depends on what you consider a structural issue and I think this answer really varies from person to person, but I can take a whack at it.

I think most experts would say the biggest structural issue facing Philadelphia is poverty, and it’s hard to argue any problem is bigger. Crime waves come and go, and public safety is no doubt the biggest current issue facing the city, but in terms of long-term problems, it’s poverty. I used to cover gun violence before I covered politics, and the connection between poverty and violence is extremely clear, both in the data and anecdotally. Lack of investment and hope breeds violence.

Every mayor for as long as any of us can remember has promised to fix poverty and hasn’t. Philadelphia remains the poorest big city in America.

In terms of the greatest opportunity, I think that’s a bit too subjective for me to take on. A lot of people think the year 2026 will be a big one for Philadelphia to either prove itself on the international stage — or flail. We’ll have World Cup matches *and* the country’s 250th birthday, a massive celebration. The next mayor will be in charge in 2026.

You’re right — there just aren’t a ton of city-funded places for young people to gather in a way that’s safe. All the candidates have acknowledged this, and see providing new spaces as a public safety initiative.

I’d say Helen Gym has probably talked most about this issue. She feels very strongly that all libraries and rec centers should be open on nights and weekends. Rebecca Rhynhart has also advocated for evening hours. Jeff Brown talks a lot about workforce development for young people, and says the city has done a poor job managing its programs aimed at providing job opportunities to young people. He’s also said he supports evening resource centers (which are where youth are taken to hang out if they violate city curfew). Cherelle Parker has proposed year-round school.

I’d say the mayor has a lot more power to steer policy within the police department than the prosecutor’s office. The district attorney maintains discretion on most policy coming out of the office, so the mayor can certainly use their bully pulpit or the power to convene, but there’s not a ton more they can do to dictate how cases are prosecuted. The mayor also proposes the budget and could in theory change how the office is funded, but any change would have to be passed by City Council. Some candidates have suggested the police department could divert more cases to state or federal prosecutors, but it’s not clear how viable such a strategy is on a large scale.

The mayor has a lot more power over the police department. The next mayor will get to pick their police commissioner, and he or she will pick someone whose values align with their vision. The mayor is ultimately responsible for policing, and can implement reforms or direct their commissioner to adjust crime-fighting strategies. The roadblock to reform here has in some cases been the police union, which has largely worked to maintain law enforcement’s status quo.

Looking for more? Read the full Reddit AMA thread here.