Bob Brady’s feud with the Harris campaign reignited long-held criticisms of the city party. But he says he’s not going anywhere.

Vice President Kamala Harris had not yet delivered her concession speech, and there was already a nasty public feud between her campaign and the leader of Philadelphia’s Democratic Party.

Longtime party chair Bob Brady said just hours after President-elect Donald Trump won that the Harris campaign didn’t respect the city’s party leaders. Harris’ team responded in kind, with a senior adviser hammering Brady’s voter turnout operation.

Discontent with the party and Brady’s stewardship of it extends beyond the Harris campaign. As the dust settles on a red wave election and a nationwide Democratic reckoning is underway, some Philadelphia Democrats are questioning the effectiveness of the Democratic City Committee under Brady, 79, a former congressman who has led it for nearly 40 years.

“It’s time for the party to think about bringing in new leadership and transitioning to new people who have a better feel for how to increase turnout,” said Terry Gillen, a former ward leader and ex-mayoral candidate. “[Brady] seems to not feel like there’s a problem. That suggests that he’s not sure how to handle this.”

The election results reignited long-simmering generational and ideological divides in the city party. And they empowered Brady’s critics, who say Philadelphia Democrats must modernize and develop more consistent strategies to drive turnout, which has been a perennial concern.

» READ MORE: What to know about Bob Brady and Philly’s ward system after this week’s feud with Kamala Harris’ campaign

On Monday, Harris’ senior adviser in Pennsylvania, Brendan McPhillips, said in an Inquirer op-ed that Brady should step down “for a new generation of leadership.”

“Brady is the issue,” added Salaah Muhammad, the Pennsylvania organizing director of the progressive Working Families Party. “He’s continuously concerned with how he remains in control rather than ‘how do we address the needs of voters?’”

But Brady and his many allies in the party say he’s not responsible for a nationwide rightward shift, and they point out that turnout in Philadelphia this year is down only slightly compared to four years ago. Few believe stronger turnout in the city would have made a difference in the outcome, given Trump improved his performance across Pennsylvania and won every swing state.

Brady says he isn’t going anywhere, and ward leaders, who elect the chair, are largely faithful to him. He isn’t up for reelection until 2026, and there’s no evidence of an organized campaign within the city committee to push him out now.

“It’s not easy keeping all the factions together and everybody moving in the same direction,” said Lou Agre, a longtime Brady ally who leads the 21st ward, which includes Roxborough. “The Democratic City Committee is one of the only institutions left in our country that represents the needs of working people, which is what the party needs right now.”

Brady said the dynamics of the election were far outside his control.

“We did a great job. We did as best as we could,” he said. “The problem is the economy.”

Brady, a former carpenter, is an old-school political operator known for appeasing warring factions of the party through constant horse-trading. While big-city Democratic machines don’t have the power they once did, the city committee still wields influence, especially in local elections, and Brady is one of the most well-connected operatives in the Northeast.

Ahead of every election, thousands of committeepeople — the foot soldiers of both local parties — are charged with deploying throughout the city and connecting with voters. There are more than 3,000 Democratic committeepeople who fan out across the city’s geographically based wards. They work largely as volunteers.

The Democratic City Committee has faced scrutiny in recent years, as Philadelphia’s share of the statewide Democratic vote has declined and the Democratic margin over Republican presidential candidates has shrunk. Over the last four years, Democrats lost about 55,000 registered voters in the city, while Republicans added about 4,000.

While some ballots are still being counted, it appears turnout in the city this year will come in slightly lower than in 2020. Gianni Hill, a consultant who works with the city committee, said he expects turnout in the city to be about 97% of what it was four years ago.

But Trump grew his vote share in the city. The result is a smaller Democratic margin: Harris garnered tens of thousands of fewer votes in Philadelphia than Biden did four years ago. She also performed worse than Biden in the suburbs, and lost Pennsylvania by more than 140,000 votes.

» READ MORE: To win Pennsylvania, Donald Trump did exactly what he needed to in Philly: Improve slightly.

Brady has said the party had financial limitations, and he criticized the Harris campaign for paying only about “half” of the $1.2 million the city committee requested for its get-out-the-vote effort. The party has long relied on campaigns to provide it with funds for expenses including “street money,” which is distributed to committeepeople for Election Day expenses like lunch or paying people to help track down potential voters.

It’s common for local parties to ask presidential campaigns for cash. But critics say the money doesn’t get results here, and that it shouldn’t be up to campaigns to finance the city party in addition to their own expansive turnout programs.

McPhillips, of the Harris campaign, said in a statement that “Brady’s decades-long practice of fleecing campaigns for money to make up for his own lack of fundraising ability or leadership is a worthless endeavor that no future campaign should ever be forced to entertain again.”

He was also critical of Brady’s turnout operation, saying in the op-ed that the party “resemble[s] more of a social club for political has-beens than a functioning organization designed to grow and build power for working people.”

Brady defended his get-out-the-vote operation. He has long empowered ward leaders to strategize in their own neighborhoods, which he says is intentional.

“Somebody in North Philadelphia wouldn’t do the same strategy as down in South Philly. Each ward leader and committeepeople know their constituencies,” Brady said. “We’re a city of neighborhoods, and every one’s different. That’s the benefit of ward leaders and committeepeople.”

But it makes for a patchwork of strategies. Some ward leaders and committeepeople organize robust door-knocking operations and registration drives for months, while others don’t mobilize much until just days before Election Day. Some use modern voter-tracking technology; others don’t.

» READ MORE: Democratic turnout in Philly has been soft. Harris' campaign had tried an amped-up ground game.

Viktor Kagan, a Democratic committeeperson in Northeast Philadelphia’s 58th ward, said the party doesn’t effectively organize canvassing operations, especially in off-years, making it challenging to build lasting relationships with voters.

More broadly, he said the city committee has alienated younger voters who are “full of desire to make radical and productive change,” but don’t see longtime party brokers as changemakers.

Kagan said the problem extends beyond Brady.

“It is an entire city party apparatus that is self-serving, cycling money in to pay itself and only itself,” Kagan said. “Young people and immigrant communities will continue to shift away from Democrats because the Philadelphia Democrats refuse to expand their electorate. They fear losing their power, so instead they lose elections.”

Some of the tension traces to last year, when about 20 committeepeople were removed from their posts after supporting Working Families Party candidates over Democratic nominees running for City Council. Two Working Families Party members won seats that had for decades been held by Republicans, while all the Democrats on the ballot also won.

Progressives and other critics of the city committee said it reinforced a feeling that the party isn’t open to newcomers.

Joe Corrigan, a Democratic strategist, said the “insular” nature of the city committee can be off-putting to young people, new voters, and “people who don’t think about politics everyday.” He said it discourages candidates from outside the existing political system who might appeal more to working-class voters.

“As long as the fealty to Bob Brady and other establishment leaders in Philadelphia politics is the way to get to elected office,” he said, “then we will continue to have worse outcomes, both in government and electoral politics.”

Inquirer staff writer Max Marin contributed to this article.