Philadelphia’s Democratic Party won’t endorse in this year’s DA race, snubbing Larry Krasner

Philadelphia’s Democratic ward leaders voted Wednesday night to snub District Attorney Larry Krasner and opted to not endorse a candidate in this year’s race to be the city’s top prosecutor, marking the second time the group has chosen to rebuff the progressive incumbent.

Instead, the party will likely have an open primary that leaves it up to the 66 individual wards and their leaders to make endorsements for district attorney. That means each ward can list any candidate — so far meaning Krasner or his challenger, former Judge Patrick Dugan — on the sample ballots the party hands out on election day. Ward leaders can also leave the slot blank.

It’s the second time in four years that the Democratic Party’s powerful Policy Committee decided not to back Krasner, although previous incumbents almost always won the nod. Holding an open primary is a way for the party to avoid warring over a citywide endorsement and is also how ward leaders handled the hotly contested mayor’s race in 2023.

The full group of ward leaders will vote in the coming weeks on whether to ratify the Policy Committee’s recommendation to hold an open primary. The committee’s recommendations are almost always approved by a majority of ward leaders.

» READ MORE: The 2025 Philly DA race is underway as ex-Judge Patrick Dugan launches bid to oust Larry Krasner

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chair of the Democratic City Committee, said Thursday that the party’s policy committee was “pretty split” on whether to back Dugan or Krasner, and that both candidates had strong interviews.

The open primary setup, he said, allows for individual ward leaders to make decisions on endorsements that are best for their own neighborhoods. The decision means candidates will blitz the city and campaign for backing in dozens of individual wards.

Krasner, who has not officially announced his campaign for a third term but interviewed with ward leaders for the endorsement last week, said Thursday that the decision is an indication that party leaders are resistant to progressives and “hell-bent on not growing the Democratic base.”

“This is just one more sign that the rusty parts of the political machine are unwilling to be replaced by shiny ones,” he said, adding that the non-endorsement “makes little difference in terms of my candidacy.”

Brady said that he was taken aback by Krasner’s response and that he had thought he was doing the district attorney a favor. He said that it was a Krasner supporter who made the motion to hold an open primary, and that if the committee had voted to endorse a candidate, Dugan could have prevailed.

If Dugan had won the endorsement outright, it would have been a significant blow to Krasner.

“He should be happy,” Brady said. “He wants to be a sore loser, let him be a sore loser.”

A longtime defense attorney, Krasner ran for district attorney for the first time in 2017 as a political outsider, and he has never had his party’s full endorsement. He won that year over a crowded field with no incumbent.

Four years later, the party decided not to endorse a candidate when Krasner ran for reelection, though nearly two dozen individual wards backed him. Fifteen wards went with his challenger, Carlos Vega, a former city homicide prosecutor. The remaining wards endorsed no one. Krasner won the primary by about 30 percentage points.

It is possible Dugan will see more success with ward leaders than Vega. The former Municipal Court judge launched his campaign last week and has the backing of the Philadelphia Building Trades and Construction Council, a politically powerful umbrella group of 30 unions whose leaders have close ties to the Democratic Party. As a judge, Dugan has existing relationships with ward leaders.

Dugan said in a statement that he was “grateful to the Democratic City Committee for the opportunity to give voters a real choice on public safety with our next district attorney.”