The race for City Council’s seven at-large seats is wide open

More than 20 candidates are vying for City Council’s seven at-large seats in a wide-open race that could reshape City Hall as much as the mayoral contest atop next year’s ballot.

Council has seen enormous turnover in the last three years — nine of the 16 members (one seat is vacant) are in their first terms — and even more change could be on the way as new lawmakers face their first reelection tests.

Philadelphia’s legislative body has an unusual structure, with 10 members who represent geographic districts and seven at-large members who are elected citywide. Two of the at-large seats are reserved for minority-party candidates, and Democrats hold the five others.

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The district Council members are viewed as particularly difficult to unseat, and few of those incumbents will face serious challenges next year.

The at-large race, however, draws many viable candidates and often sees significant campaign spending. So far, at least 15 Democrats have said they are seeking at-large seats, but that number could easily double by the May 16 primary. In 2019, 28 Democrats ran — the most in 40 years.

Contenders are already fund-raising, pitching themselves to interest groups, and looking for ways to separate themselves from what could be a sprawling field. They include City Hall veterans, progressive activists, and political outsiders.

Three Democratic incumbents who serve at-large are likely to run for reelection: Isaiah Thomas and Katherine Gilmore Richardson, both first-term members elected in 2019, and Jimmy Harrity, who was handpicked by party leaders to fill a vacant seat in a November special election.

Councilmember Sharon Vaughn, who also won her seat in this year’s special elections, has said she will not be seeking a full four-year term in next year’s elections. The fifth Democratic at-large seat is vacant after the resignation of Helen Gym, who stepped down to run for mayor.

Gilmore Richardson, a longtime Council aide who came in fifth place in the Democratic primary last cycle, called the turnover “unprecedented” and said her opponents without government experience might not be prepared.

“If you’ve never been in Council before, it’s a lot to learn,” she said. “I understand looking at it as an opportunity, but at the end of the day, this is serious work. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us.”

Incumbents like Gilmore Richardson typically have the advantage of name recognition and are likely to win the endorsement of the Democratic City Committee. Last cycle, all five winners were backed by the party, although candidates who didn’t get the machine’s blessing have succeeded in the past.

The party’s endorsement in the at-large race is typically granted to those who curry favor with ward leaders and demonstrate that they can raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars usually required to run citywide. The city committee will also prioritize racial and gender diversity in developing its slate.

A handful of Democrats seeking the party’s backing interviewed with its leaders this fall ahead of a special election, including Rue Landau, a civil rights attorney who launched her campaign this week; ex-Council aide Eryn Santamoor; gun violence prevention advocate Anton Moore; LGBTQ activist and lawyer Sherrie Cohen; and Nina Ahmad, a former deputy mayor.

Ahmad, who emigrated from Bangladesh after surviving its war of liberation, said she will push for the city to address Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis as a public health issue due to the cycles of trauma that it has produced.

“We have a traumatized society,” Ahmad said in an interview. “I lived through a war as a child. To have dead bodies around you on the street — I know what that looks like, and I know what that does to your whole psyche.”

In 2014, Landau and her wife became the first gay couple in Pennsylvania to be legally married. She recently stepped down as director of law and policy at the Philadelphia Bar Association and previously served 12 years in city government leading the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations and the Fair Housing Commission.

Landau is pitching herself as a progressive who can also work with a more centrist majority.

“Council has had a good [ideological] balance, and I believe that my background of being both progressive and an active change-maker will allow me to build coalitions and bridges across neighborhoods,” Landau said.

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Santamoor, a committeeperson who ran for an at-large seat in 2019 and came in eighth, also served in the administration of former Mayor Michael Nutter, who hosted a fund-raiser for her Wednesday. She said her campaign will emphasize her time in government, saying Council needs members who can navigate the city bureaucracy.

“I’m experienced in making sure we’re getting better results out of government,” she said. “I’m not experienced with status quo government. You need people with vision, and people who can execute that vision.”

The race on the Democratic side will also feature a number of political newcomers, government outsiders, and activists who may try to court the party’s endorsement or seek organizational support from individual wards, labor unions, the business community, or left-leaning groups.

They include Amanda McIllmurray, one of the cofounders of the progressive group Reclaim Philadelphia; Michael Galvan, a former Kenney administration official; Daniel Orsino, an LGBTQ activist and Democratic socialist; and sanitation-worker-turned-social-media-influencer Terrell Haigler.

On the Republican side, the city GOP plans to nominate a slate of five candidates and has already endorsed Drew Murray, a longtime civic leader in Center City, and Jim Hasher, a real estate broker and restaurant owner. David Oh, the only Republican currently serving at-large, is considering resigning to run for mayor.

The other minor-party seat is held by Kendra Brooks, a member of the Working Families Party who in 2019 stunned Republicans by becoming the first third-party Council member in generations. The labor-aligned party will try to take both minor-party seats this cycle and has endorsed the Rev. Nicolas O’Rourke to run alongside Brooks.