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The results of Pennsylvania’s May 20 primary election made one thing perfectly clear: Democrats in Pittsburgh are a lot smarter than they are in Philadelphia.
While both cities remain hopelessly woke and Democrat, it’s good to acknowledge positive changes when they occur on enemy political territory.
The miniature miracle I’m referring to is the fact that voters in Pittsburgh took a stand against left wing ideology and voted for a centrist Democrat who had concerns about rising crime and other issues.
Defeated in the May primary was Pittsburgh’s first black mayor, Ed Gainey, elected in 2022. The New York Times credited Gainey’s election then as the result of a wave of “pandemic fueled progressivism” that swept-and radicalized-the Democrat party. But what we saw on May 2 was Gainey’s hopes for a second term crushed by centrist Corey O’Connor, a longtime Allegheny County public servant who took issue with leftwing progressivism.
“I entered this race with a simple message: that Pittsburgh deserves better,” Corey said during his election night party. “I looked around the city as a father of two young kids and I was concerned. Concerned about rising crime. Concerned about the lack of opportunity. Concerned about the looming financial crisis.”
O’Connor won despite a vicious campaign by Gainey and his progressive cohorts that profiled him as a puppet of President Trump and Pittsburgh’s real estate empire. Gainey staffers, in full TDS mode, were quick to point out a good portion of O’Connor’s campaign donations came from Trump supporters.
The Gainey campaign, of course, was banking on Trump-hating Democrats to sink O’Connor’s chances of victory.
Those Pittsburgh voters-it can be extremely difficult for Democrats to see through their party’s leftist propaganda-finally decided they had had enough.
This was not the case in Democrat-controlled Philadelphia, however, a city unlikely to see the election of a Republican mayor or even a conservative Democrat for the next one hundred years.
And yet to be fair, Philly’s official Democrat party did not endorse Larry Krasner’s candidacy for a third term as DA. The party also held back its endorsement of Krasner in 2021, when he ran the first time as an incumbent.
In 2021, crime in the city had risen to shocking levels. Shoplifting was widespread but rarely prosecuted causing many stores like Rite Aid to close permanently while other commercial outlets began locking up toothpaste while employing security guards and police officers to “scare” off potential thieves even though the policy from Krasner’s office was not to arrest them.
The lawlessness in the city at that time was traceable to the policies of Krasner as well as the lingering fallout from the George Floyd riots that resulted in $21 million worth of damages in the city.
When Krasner first ran for Philadelphia DA in 2017, Politico hailed him as “the most liberal DA candidate in the country.” His record showed he had sued 75 police officers as a civil rights attorney. He also supported Black Lives Matter and promised to end cash bail. And yet by the end of his first term, the state capital in Harrisburg had opted to limit his influence by installing a special prosecutor to manage crimes that occurred on SEPTA property.
Although the word was out that he was too radical and far left, Krasner triumphed again in 2021, this time without the party’s endorsement. The BLM-supporter triumphed again in 2025, despite another non endorsement from the city’s Democrat Party.
Unlike the open minded Dem voters in Pittsburgh, the freeze-dried Philly woke Dems-we’re talking hard core leftists, Trump-haters and Marxists in West Philly, Powelton Village, Mt. Airy and Germantown; the progressive millennials who took part in the 2020 Floyd protests and cheered on the rioters, as well as the black radicals who now fill the ranks of Philadelphia City Council-came out in droves to support Krasner.
I saw these Krasner-supporters when I worked the polls on May 20 as a Republican committee person.
It’s important to note the Dem poll workers I worked with that day were anti-Krasner. Most of them told me they didn’t think Krasner would lose because they knew the power and fanaticism of Philly left-wingers. Still, they had some hope for the candidate their party did endorse: Pat Dugan, a U.S. Army veteran who promised to take a tougher stance on crime.
Dugan’s plan was to localize the DA’s office and prioritize the prosecution of violent offenders. In an unusual show of unity to oust Krasner, the city’s Republican Party arranged to have Republicans write-in Dugan’s name on the touch screen voting machines. The GOP even printed out special leaflets addressed to Republicans encouraging them to vote for Dugan.
In a pre-2025 primary article in City and State, Krasner called President Trump a “white collar criminal” and MAGA Republicans “fascists.”
In that piece, Krasner stated, “They are bullies who need to be punched in the face as hard as possible, and that is the only way that all the people around us who are so frightened will understand they can stand up, too.”
What’s incredibly sad for a city as large as Philadelphia—it still ranks as the nation’s sixth largest city—is that there’s no Republican DA candidate slated to run against Krasner in November. While that candidate would not likely win anyway, to have no candidate on the ballot is symbolic for giving up.
It also means Krasner is guaranteed a third term.
What does that tell you about Philadelphia’s political future?
That future can be predicted from watching the hordes of lefty millennial types-as I did on primary day-refuse to take leaflets supporting Dugan from their own committee people.
“I don’t need it. I know who I’m voting for,” they said. It was clear they had Krasner (as well as water) on the brain. The push to get the DA reelected tells me in time Philly may become the most leftist city in the nation, surpassing San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even Portland, Oregon.
This despite the fact that 2024 was a wake-up call for many Soros-supported DA’s, beginning with leftist George Gascom in Los Angeles who was replaced by an independent former federal prosecutor, Nathan Hockman.
That same year in Alameda near San Francisco, voters recalled leftist DA Pamela Price, and in Oregon, DA Mike Schmidt, who advocated for the legalization of all drugs, lost to a “return to sanity” candidate, Nathan Vasquez.
While there was a return to sanity in many parts of the country, there was no such return in Philadelphia, where the leftists-many of them wearing “Black Votes Matter” and “Make Fascism Wrong Again” buttons-caused Krasner to emerge victorious capturing almost 64% of the vote.
As 6 ABC Action News reported:
“Krasner repeatedly invoked Trump during the campaign and suggested that he is the best candidate to stand up to the president.
“Krasner… cast himself as the foil to ‘Trump and his billionaire buddies, the shooting groups and gun lobby, the old system that denied people justice for too long. They can come for Philly, but I’m not backing down.’”
Once again Philly becomes predictable Philly-a city dumber than Pittsburgh- a city immune to enlightenment and change, a city lost between two rivers, a Sanctuary City that sees no boundaries when it comes to leftwing radical innovation and provocation.