On a ‘slow’ Pennsylvania primary day, civic duty and national issues were top of mind for Philly voters

Despite the persnickety debate exchanges, interest from donors outside Pennsylvania, and influence from powerful groups like the Philadelphia building trades, the heated contest between two-term District Attorney Larry Krasner and Democratic challenger Patrick Dugan was not enough to summon voters in this off-year primary election.

Committeepeople across the city talked Phillies and the clear, sunny skies to pass the time, armed with stacks of sample ballots as they waited for voters to trickle in. Inside Tomaszewski Funeral Home in Port Richmond, election workers joked about being “bored to death.”

Omar Sabir, chair of the city commissioners, said turnout as of midday appeared to be on track to be lower than in 2021.

“It’s slow, very slow,” he said.

For all the verbal sparring between Krasner and Dugan, the most talked-about primary race was just not that exciting to voters, some election observers said. By 9:45 p.m., the race was called for Krasner, who has no Republican challenger lined up for November, paving the way for a third term.

Krasner, who has earned a national profile as a progressive prosecutor set on criminal justice reform, was in office during the greatest spike in gun violence in the city’s history, facing criticism for being soft on prosecuting gun crimes like illegal possession. Dugan, a veteran and former Municipal Court judge who has never been a prosecutor, painted himself as a change agent who would be tough on crime.

Still, with a historic drop in homicides last year and Krasner amending some of his policies, some voters like Thomas Hillhouse, a Democratic committeeman in Kensington’s 31st ward, were not clamoring for change as they cast their ballots Tuesday.

“The simple fact that [Krasner’s] willing to go after, you know, obviously criminals, but also people that violate the law on the police force, or within government, I think that that speaks of his basic fairness in his approach,” Hillhouse said.

Hillhouse said while he thinks Dugan was a great judge and is a strong Democrat, he worries about the tough-on-crime ideology he has come to represent for some voters.

» READ MORE: Philly DA Larry Krasner is poised to win a third term after defeating Patrick Dugan in the Democratic primary

Many who cast ballots Tuesday described doing so out of a civic duty, while admitting to an election and news fatigue, bordering on apathy, that made it difficult to keep up with ballot questions and judicial candidates for various courts.

Alonzo Thomas, 24, put himself in such a camp of voters at South Philadelphia’s Guerin Recreation Center. He brought his 6-year-old daughter to continue a family tradition of voting and grabbing a bite to eat afterward. Thomas said he could barely remember who he voted for in the Democratic primary.

“I mainly did it for my dad,” Thomas explained. “He’s big on politics and voting and has a firm belief that it matters.”

At the Settlement Music School branch in Northeast Philadelphia, Pamela Renninger, 69, said there wasn’t anyone she was particularly excited to vote for.

She ended up voting for Dugan to try “somebody new that I wasn’t familiar with.”

For all the distractions national politics brought them, voters in West Philadelphia said the presidency did play a role in how they cast their ballot in the district attorney race.

Krasner’s willingness to stand up to President Donald Trump appealed to voters like Romyn Flora, 26.

“I’d like to see more politicians wear their beliefs, say it with their chest,” Flora said.

By noon, the Famous 4th Street Deli was getting more action than many polling places. Judicial candidates, campaign pros, union officials, and other Philly Democratic apparatchiks chatted and chowed down at the Queen Village Jewish deli during the traditional election day lunch for the city’s political class.

Those who worked to push their preferred candidate to the top took a moment to reflect amid a procession of trays holding coffee, coleslaw, and corned beef Reubens.

“I’m proud of the effort that we have made,” said Mo Rushdy, the Philadelphia developer who worked with electricians union leader Mark Lynch Jr. to organize a super PAC opposing Krasner’s reelection campaign. “DA Krasner needed to know that there are concerned citizens who want him to look out more for the victims of crime.”

In North Philadelphia’s 20th Ward, Carmen Calhoun, judge of elections for the 3rd Division, noted the muted environment. Usually by noon, she would have handed “I Voted” stickers to at least 50 voters. Not this time.

“We only had 18 people,” Calhoun said at midday. “Really, really slow.”

Her division, however, was faring better than the one assigned to the basketball court in the basement of Bright Hope Baptist Church, where only five people had voted by noon.

Election court was equally quiet, a welcome reprieve for lawyers like Adam Bonin in the battleground state.

Bonin even made it to a political luncheon at South Restaurant & Jazz Club on North Broad Street for two lemonades.

“We have one sharply contested contest and that’s it, and so far no reports of any shenanigans,” he said. “People are going to vote on a nice day, as it should be.”

Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of the civic watchdog Committee of Seventy, said it appeared the turnout would end up being in the 20% range, a considerable drop-off from 2021, the last time the DA’s race was on the ballot.

“Now we might see that change in the fall, of course, with the increased spending, the retention races,” she said. “So the fall general might look very, very different from today.”

Mail ballots also seemed poised for a lower-than-usual return rate Tuesday.

Typically, about 80% of the voters who request a mail ballot in Philadelphia return it in time for it to be counted. But as of 7 p.m. Tuesday, just over 60% of Philadelphia voters who had requested a mail ballot had returned it, according to data reported by the Pennsylvania Department of State, though that number was expected to increase slightly once all ballots received on election day were accounted for.

The Philadelphia suburbs had some high-stakes elections of their own.

Abington voters were deciding whether to forge ahead on a $285 million middle school, while a Downingtown mayoral candidate got one step closer to becoming Pennsylvania’s first openly transgender mayor.

» READ MORE: Downingtown is one step closer to electing Pennsylvania’s first openly transgender mayor

But if turnout was slow in the city, it appeared to be glacial in some of the suburbs. At one of the region’s bigger precincts, in Upper Merion Township, exactly one person was waiting when polls opened. Inside, idle poll workers looked like so many commuters waiting for a train that wasn’t coming.

In Lower Merion, meanwhile, nine Democrats vied for four open school board seats. But as in Philadelphia, turnout seemed dismal at some polling places.

Only 11 people had voted at the Lower Merion Baptist Church in Bryn Mawr as of 2 p.m.

“This is the slowest it’s been in the seven elections I’ve been here,” election judge Charles Davis said.

Election officials, however, hesitated to make any pronouncements regarding turnout, as mail voting made it difficult to estimate figures until the ballots are officially counted.

As the day wore on, poll workers and election enthusiasts tried to keep their spirits up in creative ways. In South Philadelphia’s Marconi Plaza, two women sought to offer a moment of tranquility with an a cappella version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” drawing a round of applause in the rather empty polling place.

Staff writers Katie Bernard, Nate File, Abraham Gutman, Michelle Myers, and Denali Sagner contributed to this article.