One last chance to win votes: How Philly mayoral candidates spent the final hours of campaigning

Five Democrats who are vying for the nomination to be the 100th mayor of Philadelphia said they’d leave no vote on the table in the final hours of campaigning as they jetted around the city Monday and made their final pleas for support.

Cherelle Parker stopped for lunch at a senior center in West Philly. Allan Domb held a get-out-the-vote rally with his top supporters at a swank Center City ballroom. Rebecca Rhynhart chatted up undecided voters in small businesses. Helen Gym stumped at a Germantown coffee shop along with Randi Weingarten, the head of the national teachers’ union.

And the campaigning won’t stop until polling places close at 8 p.m. The candidates are each planning to vote first thing in the morning, then jet off to more events. They’re motivating their volunteers and supporters to knock on doors and get every last Democratic voter that they can to the polls.

The candidates’ packed schedules in the final sprint of the monthslong campaign is part of a last-ditch effort to juice turnout in a race that’s become the most competitive campaign for the Mayor’s Office in recent memory. A poll released last week showed Gym, Parker, and Rhynhart neck-and-neck at the top, with Domb not far behind and Jeff Brown still in contention — meaning the race could come down to a small amount of votes.

» READ MORE: Inside the big get-out-the-vote plans ahead of the Philly mayor’s race

That means final pitches coupled with get-out-the-vote efforts could, in theory, swing the race. The nominee could be selected by fewer than 100,000 votes, or less than 10% of all registered voters, and polling has showed a large swath of the electorate was undecided.

Most of the candidates spent the final hours trying to convince voters who haven’t yet made up their minds. Domb went on a walking tour through North Philadelphia Monday, and Rhynhart jetted across Northwest Philly, then stopped at a pair of senior centers.

Some of the contenders are being supported by political organizations and labor unions that are fanning out across the city this week to try to get their preferred candidate’s name and face in front of voters one last time.

In Parker’s case, that means members of building-trades unions and the majority of the city’s ward leaders. For Brown, it’s a handful of blue-collar unions that are backing his bid. For Gym, it’s the teachers union and more than a dozen well-organized progressive groups that have an army of volunteers.

On Monday, Gym spent part of the day mingling with SEPTA commuters and kicked off a door-knocking program in West Philadelphia alongside progressive organizations that are backing her candidacy.

As the sun set, dozens of her supporters packed into Uncle Bobbie’s coffee shop and bookstore in Germantown to hear from Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who has known Gym for more than a decade. She recalled protesting alongside Gym amid state budget cuts and plans to close Philadelphia public schools, saying repeatedly: “Helen was there.”

In Gym, Weingarten said, “the city of brotherly love will have a transformational leader who cares about the people first.”

» READ MORE: Voters guide: See candidates' policy positions here

Gym, whose voice was a little hoarse fresh off a 1,200-person rally with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.), told teachers’ union members who’d gathered that “we are so close to having the city that we believe in.”

“Let’s write the end chapter. Let’s tell the final narrative,” she said. “We have a city to build, we have children to raise, and we have a city on the rise.”

Across the city at Union Trust, a former bank turned event venue near Old City, a few hundred supporters gathered for Domb, a real-estate broker and former City Councilmember. He said he’d made 14 campaign stops on Saturday.

“That’s the work ethic I’ll put in as your next mayor,” he said. “This is a turning point election. It’s a big choice on the future of the city.”

The final pitch for Domb, who has self funded his campaign, was that he’s a successful businessman who cares about the city, and is not beholden to campaign donors. Speakers included a restaurant owner facing eviction who he’d helped, boxing great Bernard Hopkins and former Mayor Bill Green, who said Domb had the most realistic plans for governing.

”There’s a lot of misleading, heartwarming but undoable plans,” Green said. ”He doesn’t owe anybody anything he will be beholden to nothing except his conscience and that’s clean.”

Parker, who has been endorsed by most of the Democratic Party’s elected officials in the city, has spent the final days of the campaign emphasizing her lived experience, saying she’s best positioned to run the city because she understands its people.

She also got in a few last-minute jabs, and has described her top opponents as out of touch with average Philadelphians. On Sunday afternoon, Parker appeared on MSNBC and said voters would not be swayed by “Hollywood stardom,” apparently referring to Gym’s rally with Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).

Speaking to the Rev. Al Sharpton, Parker said the “vast majority” of Philadelphians “are not interested in a senator from Vermont or a congresswoman from New York thinking that they’re going to come here to our city and tell us what we need in a mayor.”

”I’ve heard from people on the ground, in neighborhoods across our city,” Parker said, “that they are really fed up with folks engaging in what I often refer to as we-know-what’s-best-for-youse-people policymaking.”

Brown likely has the most ground to gain to pull off a win, and on Monday visited SEPTA transit stops to meet with potential voters. The longtime ShopRite proprietor — who has put $4 million of his own money into the race — is still leaning into the foundation of his campaign: the idea that the city should not promote one of his opponents, all of whom were elected officials during some of the most turbulent times in the city’s history.

He’s acknowledged that the last few months — which included debate missteps and a high-profile ethics investigation — have been rocky. A late television ad from his campaign shows Brown looking directly into the camera and saying: “It’s been a tough campaign.”

In an interview over the weekend, Brown said that he isn’t deterred by recent polls that have showed him in fifth place, saying his campaign believes undecided voters tend to be older people of color, whom he described as core Brown voters.

“I think at the end of the day, they’re keeping their opinion close to their vest,” Brown said. “But I think they’re Jeff Brown voters.”

Inquirer staff writers Sean Collins Walsh and Ryan Briggs contributed to this article.