Working Families Party wins two City Council seats in a historic win for Philly progressives
Councilmember Kendra Brooks won reelection and her running mate Nicolas O'Rourke was poised to take another seat that Republicans held for more than 70 years.
Working Families Party candidates Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke won a pair of seats on Philadelphia City Council Tuesday, scoring an unprecedented victory for progressives and ousting Republicans from seats they’d held for more than 70 years.
Brooks, an incumbent who four years ago became the first third-party candidate to win a seat in decades, won reelection to one of the two seats that represent the city at-large and are effectively reserved for non-Democrats. O’Rourke, a pastor, took the other seat that had been held by a Republican.
Brooks and O’Rourke’s defeat of two Republican candidates, Jim Hasher and Drew Murray, means that only one member of the GOP will sit on the 17-seat legislative body in a city with more than 115,000 Republicans. That member, longtime Councilmember Brian O’Neill, won reelection Tuesday to represent the Northeast Philadelphia-based 10th District.
“Together we have left the Republican party to the dustbin of history. The Working Families Party is here to stay,” O’Rourke said in remarks to a raucous crowd gathered at the Roar Nightclub in Fishtown. “Philadelphia said loudly that we do not want or need any more Republican representation, and I could not agree with y’all more.”
Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, said that “Philadelphia is now a two-party town: Democrats and the Working Families Party.”
Murray conceded Wednesday morning, posting on social media: “We came up short, but I know we could not have done more.” Hasher also congratulated the Working Families Party, saying “They ran a hard race.”
Five Democratic nominees secured the other at-large seats Tuesday, an outcome that was expected given Philadelphia’s deep-blue electorate.
All 17 seats on Council were on ballots Tuesday, including seven seats that represent the city at-large. Under the city’s Home Rule Charter, each party may only nominate up to five candidates, meaning two seats are effectively reserved for members outside the majority party.
The five Democrats who won reelection include incumbents Isaiah Thomas, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, and Jim Harrity. The other Democratic winners were Rue Landau, a housing attorney who will become the first openly LGBTQ Council member in city history, and Nina Ahmad, a former deputy mayor who will become the first-ever South Asian member.
Each of the winners will serve four-year terms that begin in January. They’ll take office at a time of massive turnover in City Hall, with a new mayor and new Council president also taking office at the start of the year.
The campaign between the GOP and the Working Families Party for the two non-Democrat seats was one of the most closely watched and expensive races this fall, a departure from past general election cycles in Philadelphia that were much sleepier than primary election seasons.
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Instead, the race was a contentious battle, with both sides attempting to portray their opponents as extreme.
The Working Families Party tried to associate Hasher and Murray — who described themselves as moderate — with national Republicans, election denialism, and abortion bans. Meanwhile, the Republicans described Brooks and O’Rourke as left-wing radicals associated with supervised drug consumption sites and the movement to defund the police.
The final weeks of the campaign featured a flood of television advertising and mail attacks. Brooks and O’Rourke set fundraising records for third-party candidates, bringing in more than a million dollars combined and far out-raising Republicans. The third party spent a quarter-million dollars on advertising — more than eight times what it did four years ago.
But Republicans — embarrassed by Brooks’ 2019 win — employed a new strategy this year, backing only two nominees instead of five so they could take on the Working Families Party head-to-head. Philly GOP Chair Vince Fenerty projected confidence ahead of Election Day, saying consolidating party support behind Hasher and Murray would lift them to victory.
Brooks said Tuesday night that the campaign “put together a diverse, welcoming and bigger coalition than we did in 2019.”
“We had to, because we faced attacks at every corner,” she said.
Both camps also had support from organized labor and other outside spending groups that attempted to influence the results.
The politically powerful Building and Construction Trades Council supported Hasher, in part because he is in favor of the proposed 76ers arena in Center City, which could create thousands of construction jobs.
A dozen other labor unions, including those that represent teachers and service workers, backed the Working Families Party. The progressives also had support from the WFP national organization, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a robust door-knocking and literature operation.
In addition, a super PAC called the Coalition for Safety and Equitable Growth ran only negative advertising about the Working Families Party members. The group was largely financed by conservative Main Line billionaire Jeffrey Yass, who has contributed millions to political campaigns and causes.
The Working Families Party’s insurgency over the last four years was a threat to the Philadelphia Republican Party, which has seen its power and influence wane over several decades.
Still, their project of attempting to oust Republicans from City Hall entirely required a large voter education campaign. In order to win, Brooks and O’Rourke had to convince left-leaning Democratic voters to forgo casting a ballot for one or two Democratic nominees and instead vote for Working Families Party members.
Supporters of the progressive ticket said the strategy posed no threat to Democrats, who were all-but-certain to win seats.
But it still angered Democratic party operatives, including former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chair of the Democratic City Committee. He threatened to expel Democratic committeepeople and ward leaders who supported Brooks and O’Rourke, citing party bylaws that say committee members can’t support candidates outside their party.
Dozens of committeepeople publicly supported Brooks and O’Rourke anyway. Viktor Kagan, 22, a committeeperson who lives in Northeast Philadelphia, was working at a polling place at St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and said: “Nobody’s abrasive to the Working Families Party around here.”
“People our age are less attached to the labels Democrat and Republican,” Kagan said.
Others were less convinced. Jeff Riedel, 45, a registered Democrat, voted for Hasher and Murray, saying the Working Families Party’s goal of booting Republicans from City Hall runs counter to the city’s Home Rule Charter, which sets aside two seats for members outside the majority.
”To allow those two non-majority party seats, one would assume it’s to provide accountability to the people that are in the majority,” he said.
Staff writers Zoe Greenberg, Beatrice Forman, and Kristen Graham contributed to this report.