Mayor Cherelle L. Parker endorses State Sen. Sharif Street for Congress

Three years ago, State Sen. Sharif Street stood proudly behind Cherelle L. Parker at an election night victory party after voters picked her to be Philadelphia’s first female mayor.

At the time, Street was the head of the state Democratic Party, and he had enthusiastically supported her in a crowded primary.

On Wednesday, now-Mayor Parker returned the favor.

Standing outside City Hall, Parker and a slew of other prominent Philadelphia elected officials announced they were endorsing Street, who is now running for Congress in an ultracompetitive Democratic primary. Street is seeking to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans and represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses a large swath of Philadelphia and is one of the bluest districts in the nation.

“I need a reliable partner in Washington, D.C., who understands the assignment on Day One, who knows that they have to use their seat at the table to leverage scarce resources to bring home,” Parker said during the announcement. “Because if we’re building the school, no matter where it is, a park, a recreation center or a library, every nickel counts, and acquiring support from local, state and federal government — it matters.”

Street, she said, understands that “in a very tangible way.”

Street said endorsing Parker in 2023 was “one of the best political decisions I ever made.”

“When we win, we’re going to deliver the mayor the resources she needs to continue to deliver for the people of this city,” Street said.

» READ MORE: Philly’s three-way fight to replace Dwight Evans in the U.S. House enters a volatile final stretch

It was perhaps predictable that the mayor would ultimately endorse Street, as he is building a coalition similar to hers in 2023. They are both allied with the powerful Philadelphia Building Trades and Construction Council, and the leaders of the Democratic City Committee, who endorsed Street, also largely backed Parker three years ago.

Still, the mayor’s backing is a critical vote of confidence for Street, who is up against two other formidable candidates.

Physician Ala Stanford, a first-time candidate, is being boosted by a deep-pocketed super PAC spending more than $2 million in her favor, making her the only candidate with television ads on the air. And State Rep. Chris Rabb has the support of the city’s progressive movement.

» READ MORE: Meet the 4 Democrats vying to replace Dwight Evans in Congress

The mayor was joined at the news conference Wednesday by several other elected officials there to endorse Street, including influential West Philadelphia lawmakers: State Sen. Vincent Hughes; City Councilmembers Curtis Jones Jr. and Katherine Gilmore Richardson; and State Rep. Morgan Cephas, who dropped out of the congressional race last month.

Cephas’ exit appears to have been the final piece of the puzzle for Street to complete his near-sweep of endorsements from elected officials aligned with the city’s Democratic establishment. Jones had previously endorsed Cephas before backing Street on Wednesday, and Hughes and Gilmore Richardson waited on the sidelines until their fellow West Philadelphian bowed out.

As if to underscore the notion that the establishment had coalesced around Street, the assembled politicians on Wednesday joked with each other about insider-baseball politics during their speeches: which ward leaders are best at taking care of constituent requests and how past legislative leadership elections unfolded. Street reminisced about getting to know Parker when they were young staffers working for elected officials they would eventually succeed.

“We go back,” Street said. “We were addressing issues to help people get their houses relocated when we were both staffers, and you were working for Councilwoman [Marian] Tasco, and I was working for [State] Sen. [Shirley] Kitchen.”

Street has now won powerful allies across the district. His own geographic base is in North Philadelphia, where his father, former Mayor John F. Street, built a political power center in the 1980s.

Last week, a contingent of Southwest and South Philadelphia lawmakers — including State Sen. Anthony Williams and Council President Kenyatta Johnson — also announced their support for Street.

Parker is the city’s most visible Democrat from the voter-rich neighborhoods in Northwest Philadelphia. In addition to being the city’s mayor, she is the ward leader in the high-turnout 50th Ward. Parker said her ward’s committeepeople interviewed all of the 3rd District candidates and voted “nearly unanimously” to endorse Street.

» READ MORE: Philly’s competitive U.S. House race narrows — but big questions loom

Democratic ward leaders and committeepeople boost their chosen candidates by knocking on doors to get their neighbors to vote and handing out “sample ballots” of party-endorsed candidates to voters as they enter polling places.

“I’m proud to have the support of the over 1,500 committeepeople that are in this district,” Street said. “I’m not backing off of the fact that the party supports me. Guess what? My constituents, the men and women of the party, they live here, they pay taxes here.”

Ward endorsements are often determinative in elections where voters know little about the candidates, such as local judicial races. In higher-profile contests, such as mayoral or congressional races, ward support helps candidates but is not seen as an insurmountable advantage.

Some of the progressive groups backing Rabb have developed their own get-out-the-vote machinery, and a successful media-driven campaign like Stanford’s can make up for disadvantages in ground-level organizing.

Rabb, an anti-establishment politician who has for years been a thorn in the side of Parker’s political organization in the Northwest, has said he’s not surprised he isn’t scoring insider endorsements.

“The political class doesn’t have much love for me, because I speak truth to power,” Rabb said at a forum this week. “I am not transactional. I don’t kiss the ring. I don’t believe in concentrated power.”

Stanford has also expressed displeasure with how the city’s Democratic machine operates. She noted that party allies filed a legal challenge seeking to disqualify her from the race for filing to list her name as “Dr. Ala Stanford” on the ballot. She agreed to drop the title.

This week, Stanford called for term limits for ward leaders and committeepeople and a prohibition on elected officials simultaneously serving as party ward leaders, as Parker, Gilmore Richardson, and many other politicians do.

“You should not be able to hold elected office and also be a ward leader because people would feel coerced or pressured,” she said at the forum. “And that can happen for 20, 30, 50 years.”

Parker’s endorsement of Street means the powerful Northwest Coalition, an influential political organization that has produced some of the city’s most prominent Black leaders, will be split in this election.

Evans, who has held the 3rd District seat for the last decade, endorsed Stanford to succeed him. Evans and Parker have been close for decades — he walked her down the aisle at her 2010 wedding — making Parker’s choice to campaign for Street all the more significant.

The mayor’s backing is also a critical step for Street as he tries to unite Black voters behind him. Black and Latino voters lifted Parker to office when she ran for mayor in 2023, and recent polling in the 3rd Congressional District shows they remain some of her staunchest supporters.

“For us to come together to say that, ‘Listen, Northwest Philadelphia and West Philadelphia, we’re going to work hard, and we have shared synergy in our support for Sen.Street and his efforts to become congressman’ — I’m really proud of that,” Parker told reporters.

Staff writer Sam Janesch contributed to this article.

More on the 3rd Congressional District race

• Meet the Democrats vying to replace Dwight Evans in Congress

• How the Middle East and the word 'genocide' became the defining issue of the Philly congressional race

• Sharif Street could become Pa.’s first Muslim member of Congress. But don’t make assumptions about his politics.

• Chris Rabb is trying to be the left’s standard-bearer as he runs for Congress. Will progressives rally around him?

• Ala Stanford is banking on a healthcare message to break through crowded Philly primary for Congress

• Big money is flooding into the Philly congressional race as all three front-runners hit the airwaves

• How two Philly congressional candidates are quietly guiding super PACs in plain sight

• Gov. Josh Shapiro has endorsed in four Pa. congressional primaries. He hasn’t weighed in on Philly’s race.

• Sharif Street and Chris Rabb are asking Philly voters to send them to Washington. As state lawmakers, they’ve had very different styles.