Bob Brady has chaired Philly’s Democratic Party since 1986. Ward leaders just gave him four more years.

Since 1986, Philadelphia has had six different mayors and five City Council Presidents. But over the those four decades, the city’s Democratic Party has known only one leader, Robert A. Brady.

And he’s not done yet.

Brady, 82, on Monday night won an 11th term as chair of the Democratic City Committee, continuing an astonishing run as the top official in the local party despite growing tensions between the local Democratic establishment and progressive insurgents.

Fresh off democratic socialist Chris Rabb’s victory in last month’s Democratic primary for an open Philly congressional seat, District Attorney Larry Krasner called on Brady to resign, and progressive activists hoped to shake up the local party they blame for Philly Democrats’ lackluster turnout in recent federal elections.

But following last week’s ward leader elections — in which left-leaning candidates notched at least five victories, but came up well short of the numbers needed to seriously threaten Brady and his allies — the writing was on the wall.

No challenger stepped forward during Monday night’s leadership elections at the party’s headquarters, the Robert A. Brady Office Building on Spring Garden Street, and the incumbent won another four-year term.

“It‘s pretty nice to get it unanimous — nobody complains at all, no problems whatsoever, and that’s the way I like to have it," Brady told reporters after his reelection, in which the ward leaders approved his slate of party officers in a unanimous voice vote.

He added that he believes the party’s factions can overcome their differences.

“They know that my heart’s in the right place,” Brady said of the party’s left-leaning critics. “I want to go in the right direction, and it might be the direction that they want to go.”

» READ MORE: Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself the winner of a Philly Democratic ward election — and may have violated party rules

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, who leads the 50th Ward, addressed party officials during the election meeting, telling them she is a “progressive with a capital P — because if you want to be a progressive, you got to make some progress."

“People want results,” Parker said in an interview afterward. “They don’t want to see fighting. They don’t want to see finger pointing. Let’s focus on an agenda and not try to eat our own.”

Also Monday, the party elected several new officers to serve alongside Brady and ordered reruns of three ward leader elections with contested outcomes.

Those include Mount Airy’s 22nd Ward, in which City Councilmember Cindy Bass controversially declared herself the winner after a contested voice vote.

All three reruns will take place Wednesday night.

Brady lives in Overbook, where he is the 34th Ward leader.

His mother was a committeeperson, and he worked as a union carpenter before his mentor, the late City Council President George X. Schwartz, got him a patronage job as a Council sergeant-at-arms. (Schwartz later went to fail after being convicted on corruption charges as part of the ABSCAM scandal in the 1980s.)

Brady was elected to Congress in a 1998 special election, and eventually chaired the House Administration Committee, which handles the behind-the-scenes tasks such as assigning office space to lawmakers.

While in Congress, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2007, losing to Michael A. Nutter, who ran on an anti-corruption campaign.

In 2017, news broke that Brady’s congressional campaign was the subject of a federal investigation for an alleged scheme in which a would-be challenger accepted a $90,000 to withdraw from running against Brady in a 2012 primary.

Two of Brady’s aides served prison time, but Brady never admitted wrongdoing. He chose not to run for reelection the following cycle, in 2018.

While Brady is often referred to as Philly’s “party boss,“ leading the City Committee isn’t the same job as it was in the heyday of big city machine politics.

Thanks to civil service reforms in the 1950s, there are far fewer patronage jobs to hand out. And Brady’s time is more often spent attempting to maintain peace between the various political organizations around the city, rather than telling them what to do.

“It really isn’t all that easy, you know, keeping everybody together,” Brady said Monday night. “You got all kinds of factions, all kinds of egos, and I try to do the best I can to keep together, like we did tonight.”

One area where today’s party does resemble the machine politics of old is local judicial elections. Party-endorsed candidates almost always win seats on the local Municipal Court and Common Pleas Court benches, and many of their staffs are in turn filled with people connected to the local party.

Brady and party leaders have no qualms admitting what it takes to win their approval: doing favors and free legal work for the City Committee, ward leaders, and their constituents.

Although the Democratic City Committee does not have a new chair, ward leaders on Monday elected a new No. 2.

Former Councilmember Sharon Vaughn, who leads the 49th Ward, will be the new first chair of the party, replacing former Councilmember Jannie Blackwell, who did not run for reelection as 46th Ward leader.

Vaughn, who is also a secretary of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, would temporarily become City Committee chair if Brady were to step aside. Brady said Monday he would support her to one day hold the position on a permanent basis as well.

“She’s a great world leader, a former Councilperson, a hard worker,” Brady said. “What you see is what you get, straight shooter, and she’ll tell you just what it is. And she’s a loyal lady.”

Lauren Rinaldi, the 18th Ward leader who is seen as having relationships with both the progressive and establishment wings of the party, became the second vice chair. She replaces Bass, who has now lost out on her citywide party leadership post regardless of how Wednesday’s 22nd Ward election redo shakes out.

Rinaldi said Monday night she understands her election to leadership was partially an olive branch to the left wing of the party.

“I‘m sure that’s part of it, definitely,” Rinaldi said in an interview. “But I am seeing my role as an advocate — advocating for reform to strengthen the party and modernize the way we do some things and bring more people in instead of shut them out. Basically to rebuild trust with voters."

The third vice chair remains 7th Ward Leader Angel Cruz, and 63rd Ward Leader Brian Eddis has replaced Bill Dolbow as fourth vice chair.

Former City Controller Jonathan Saidel will stay on as the party’s treasurer, with John Brady, who is not related to the chair, serving as assistant treasurer.

And 6th Ward Leader Pete Wilson was retained as secretary, with 8th Ward Leader Elaine Petrossian elected as assistant secretary.

The party on Monday ordered that the results of three contested ward leader races have been voided and that they will be rerun on Wednesday at the Brady building, with a committee of other ward leaders overseeing the results.

In all three instances, the ward elections were found to have violated the party’s procedures.

The redo for the 14th Ward, in which incumbent Arthur Green lost to Valerie Williams, will take place at 6 p.m.

That will be followed by a 7 p.m. rerun of 17th Ward election, which was an open seat in which Tyrone Barge defeated Michelle Schley.

And finally, the 22nd Ward redo will take place at 8 p.m., with progressive challenger Octavius Price taking on Bass.

In all three races, the party will allow “proxy votes” from committeepeople who cannot attend to be submitted if they are accompanied by notarized affidavits.

Brady said the decision to redo the 22nd Ward vote was an easy one after he saw a video published by The Inquirer showing Bass, who chaired her own reelection meeting, shutting down requests for a roll call vote that could have clarified the results.

“I don’t think anybody that saw that [video] ... was supportive of it,” Brady said. “One ward is one ward, and there’s 68 others, and we’re all going to fix that on Wednesday night.