Philly Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke will deliver the progressive response to Biden’s State of the Union

The Working Families Party has tapped Philadelphia City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke to deliver its response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address next week, a sign that the progressive third party sees the new lawmaker as a national face of its movement.

The selection of O’Rourke, who was sworn in as a member of Council representing the city at-large just last month, also demonstrates the importance of Philadelphia’s role in the 2024 election cycle as the largest city in a critical swing state. The Working Families Party has not endorsed Biden for reelection, but its leadership has made clear that it opposes former President Donald Trump.

“Nicolas will bring all his moral clarity and strategic vision to this speech,” Working Families Party national director Maurice Mitchell said in a statement. “Just like in 2020, winning states like Pennsylvania will mean really understanding what matters to working people in cities like Philadelphia. Anyone who wants to stop the MAGA movement in its tracks should listen to Nicolas closely.”

O’Rourke’s bid for Council last year represented a historic win for the labor-aligned Working Families Party, which secured two seats on City Council that are effectively set aside for non-Democrats — ousting Republicans from seats they’d held for more than 70 years in the process. He joined incumbent City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, who won reelection last year after four years ago becoming the first third-party candidate to win a seat on Council in decades.

This year’s State of the Union response — the party’s seventh — is also unique because O’Rourke ran and won as a member of the Working Families Party. In past years, progressive Democrats backed by the Working Families Party have delivered the response, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), both of whom have been critical of Biden.

The party often endorses Democrats and does not typically run its own candidates in general elections if it’s likely they’ll end up helping the GOP.

» READ MORE: The Working Families Party's history in Philadelphia

O’Rourke said in a statement that “it’s an honor to deliver the Working Families Party response.” The speech and response will be on March 7.

“I hope to give voice to the working people in Philadelphia and around the country,” he said, “who want a better life for themselves and a brighter future for the next generation.”

He is expected to praise Biden on some economic policy, but is likely to criticize the president over his support for Israel in its ongoing war in Gaza. The conflict in the Middle East has become a vulnerability for Biden in his reelection bid, as many in the party have threatened to sit out the election if the war continues on its current trajectory.

The Working Families Party, which is based in New York and has chapters in states across the country, played a role in Biden’s successful bid for White House in 2020, launching get-out-the-vote efforts in such cities as Philadelphia and encouraging progressives to vote for Biden despite disagreeing with him on some issues, including health care and climate policy.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia was told to brace for mass unrest after the Election. Instead, the city danced.

And after election day, when pro-Trump protesters demonstrated outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center where election workers were counting Philadelphia ballots, the Working Families Party organized a counter-protest-turned-dance-party with O’Rourke as the emcee. City officials credited the event’s organizers for keeping peace in a situation that could have devolved into political violence.

“Never, ever in a million years did we see Joe Biden as a destination,” O’Rourke said at the time. “He’s a doorway to the kind of terrain and world that we could actually organize in.”