Philly’s mayoral primary was ‘high stakes’ and historic, but turnout looks so-so

The most-expensive mayoral primary campaign ever in Philadelphia, and an extraordinarily competitive race among several Democratic candidates, indeed made electoral history Tuesday — but not for voter participation.

On what turned out to be a splendid May day, between 25% and 30% of the city’s registered voters had cast ballots in-person or by mail, according to estimates by the turnout-tracking service, sixtysixwards.com.

“It’s not great,” said Patrick Christmas, chief policy officer for the Committee of Seventy, the election watchdog group. “But that’s pretty consistent with other primaries.”

This one, however, was different — a “high stakes” primary, he called it. The balloting ended with Democrats choosing Cherelle Parker to become the city’s first Black woman to be the mayoral nominee of a major party.

In her attempt to become the 100th mayor of a city in which Democrats hold a 7-1 registration advantage, she will run against David Oh, the unopposed Republican nominee.

» READ MORE: Cherelle Parker won the Democratic nomination for mayor

For the most part, the actual voting Tuesday was trouble-free, Christmas said — although some polling-place switches clearly angered and confused some voters.

Not surprisingly, voters interviewed appeared divided among the front-runners in the mayor’s race — Parker, former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart and former Councilmembers Allan Domb and Helen Gym.

Among voters’ primary concerns was public safety. For a third consecutive year, in 2022 Philadelphia experienced historic levels of gun crimes that claimed an unprecedented numbers of lives.

In a pre-election survey, nine out of 10 voters identified crime as the key issue.

“I’m tired of kids getting killed,” said Abdul Raheem, 51, a drug-and-alcohol counselor who was voting in Frankford. He said that he was torn between Domb and Rhynhart, who along with Gym and Parker was vying to become the city’s first female mayor.

» READ MORE: For Philly voters, crime was a big reason behind their choices for mayor

“Crime is the most important thing that has me scared today,” said Stephanie Clark, 62, after voting at the Charles Durham Free Library in Mantua. “I’m scared to go to the store. You don’t know if you’re going to get shot.”

Clark said she voted for Parker for mayor because she wants to hire more police and because she “seems like a very strong, stern woman who stands her ground.”

For the $30 million spent and the drama associated with what was at times a contentious campaign, the nominee could end up winning with fewer than 100,000 votes, which would be the lowest total for a mayoral primary victor since at least the 1970s, according to an Inquirer analysis.

» READ MORE: The competitive race likely will mean a low vote total for the winner

As in Philadelphia, the Democratic commissioners race in Montgomery County — the state’s third-largest and likely to play a major role in the 2024 presidential campaign — drew a crowded field of five candidates.

However at late morning, one of the more-populous precincts in Upper Merion Township wasn’t a bad place to get some reading done, as not a single voter was in line. “Despite the most beautiful day,” said Democratic committee person Joan McAndrew, “it’s very light.”

By contrast, turnout was reported brisk in the bankrupt city of Chester, where embattled Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland was confronting a challenge from two rivals.

Elsewhere in Delaware County, in Upper Darby Township, Democrat Heather Boyd won a special election over Republican Katie Ford, assuring that Democrats would retain their one-vote majority in the state House.

» READ MORE: Democrats keep Pa. House majority following Rep. Mike Zabel’s resignation

However, the Philadelphia mayoral contest was the marquee race, and a big topic of discussion among election workers was the turnout. Based on the unofficial results, it appeared that just under 30% of the city’s 770,000 Democrats voted in the primary.

Inside West Philadelphia High School late Tuesday, the after-work rush was absent. Election workers described the day as slow, especially for a high-stakes mayoral election.

”The crowd is not what we expected,” said Jason Custis, a judge of elections, as he surveyed the mostly empty room. “It’s been dead.”

Conventional wisdom had held that low turnout would benefit Gym and potentially Parker, who both have high-performing wards in their corners.

Ryan Boyer, who leads the laborers union and the Building Trades and Construction Council, had said he was confident Parker would pull it out because her base — Black women over 50 — are the most reliable voters in Democratic politics.

“We have the best candidate. Our voters are the most reliable,” Boyer said. “We believe that will show through.”

Some voters awoke to learn their polling places had been relocated — in at least one instance, with little official notice. It was unclear if any votes were lost as a result.

“We did have a handful of last-minute polling place moves,” said Nick Custodio, a spokesperson for the city commissioners.

In North Philadelphia, a late change in polling locations touched off confusion among voters, a rash of finger-pointing, and a brief standoff between poll workers and the city officials charged with overseeing the election.

City attorneys said that poll workers at the 16th Ward, 18th Division unilaterally decided to move voting machines from their designated polling location to a new locale Tuesday morning and threatened to shut down the site when elections officials arrived to move the machines back.

The impasse resulted in an unspecified number of voters either being forced to vote provisionally or being turned away from the polls between 7 a.m. and roughly 12:30 p.m., poll workers and voters said.

With the top candidates clustered in pre-election polling, and turnout likely to have been so-so, even a few lost votes might have been crucial. But Parker evidently won with by a surprisingly robust margin, with incomplete returns showing her defeating second-place finisher Rhynhart by about 10 percentage points.

However, it also appeared that Parker’s final total would be below below 100,000, which would be the be the lowest winning raw vote total in a primary since at least the 1970s.

By contrast, W. Wilson Goode, the city’s first Black mayor, polled well over 300,000 votes in the 1983 Democratic primary.

One Democrat who did turn out Tuesday in Philadelphia was Nazli Cem, a 33-year-old animator from Turkey who became a citizen two months ago and cast her first vote in the United States, casting a ballot for Gym.

She teared up after she left her polling place in Kensington.

“I think voting is very important and it literally changes your life. It’s a statement about how you want to live. I don’t want the U.S. to become Turkey.”

Ryan W. Briggs, Beatrice Forman, Zoe Greenberg, Lynette Hazelton, Jeff Gammage, Kristen A. Graham, Jonathan Lai, Andrew Seidman, Julia Terruso, Sean Collins Walsh, and Aubrey Whelan contributed to this article.