When Philadelphia leaders drafted the city’s Home Rule Charter more than 70 years ago, they intended to weed out corruption in the city and to establish a new “form of improved municipal self-government,” for citizens who are “grateful to God for the freedoms we enjoy.”
The charter set the ground rules for how the city should operate: who qualifies for political office, what powers and duties leaders have, what activities are prohibited.
The 1951-era document barred city workers from working on political campaigns, it included a resign-to-run rule for elected officials, and it established recall procedures. The charter also established voting rules that require party diversity on the city council. As GOP support has waned in Philadelphia and other big American cities, the charter seemed to assure the city’s 116,000 registered Republicans at least some nominal representation in leadership.
But the Philadelphia GOP’s grasp on any real semblance of power is now being challenged by the Working Families Party, a far-left splinter group that critics say is barely a party at all.
In 2019, a Working Families candidate surprised Philadelphia Republicans by winning one of two at-large council seats reserved for an opposition party. Two well-funded Working Families candidates are now working hard to win both of the at-large seats. At the same time, Brian Hughes, a councilman since 1980 and the only Republican in a district seat, is facing one of the best-funded challengers of his political career.
If all three Republicans lose, it would be the first time in modern history that the Philadelphia GOP didn’t hold at least one city council seat, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which described Tuesday’s election as “something of an existential test” for the party.
Jim Hasher, one of the Republicans seeking an at-large seat, agreed with the paper’s assessment. If he, Hughes, and Drew Murray, the other Republican running for an at-large seat, all lose, “I really believe we will be wiped out as an organization,” he told National Review. “I don’t think we recover from this.”
Vince Fenerty, chair of the Philadelphia GOP, agreed that losing on Tuesday would be a crisis for local Republicans. “It would be embarrassing and bad,” said Fenerty, who described their efforts to win on Tuesday as nothing short of a “crusade for our party.”
David Oh, the Republican underdog running an almost rogue campaign for mayor, was less concerned about the future of the already “very weak” party, whose establishment leaders he’s often butted heads with. “The Republican Party is already lost” in Philadelphia, he said.
“Most of the people in this city, they hate Republicans. And if you just say, ‘free lunch,’ they’re going to vote for you,” the 63-year-old Korean-American said. Another problem, he said: “We have two white guys that nobody ever heard of that have not gone into any of [the city’s diverse] communities until, like, maybe three weeks ago, and that doesn’t work.”
Philadelphia’s charter does not specifically state that any of the city’s 17 council seats are reserved for a particular political party. Ten of the seats represent districts in the city, while seven of them are at large. According to the charter, voters can vote in their district race and can vote for up to five at-large candidates.
Political parties can only run five at-large candidates, meaning at least two of the seats will go to candidates not aligned with the majority party.
“Minority representation is assured by the requirement that no more than five candidates may be elected for councilmen-at-large by any one party or political body,” the charter states.
In the deep-blue city where Democrats make up 75 percent of all registered voters, Republicans have historically held the two opposition seats on the council. But that changed in 2019 when two Working Families Party candidates entered the race, and one of their candidates, Kendra Brooks, won one of the opposition-party seats. Oh, the current Republican mayoral candidate, won the other.
“Basically we got sucker-punched, we got caught flat-footed,” Hasher said.
Republicans say they lost one of the seats because they ran five Republicans for two seats, splitting their vote and creating an opening for the Working Families candidates.
“It’s almost like shame on us,” Hasher said of not seeing the challenge coming.
Fenerty said the Working Families Party is a party in name only — they’re more of a fringe Democratic splinter group of “progressives and socialists.”
Nationally, the Working Families Party often endorses far-left Democrats, like Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. On the party’s website, it acknowledges that “sometimes we run candidates through Democratic Party primaries, and other times we run candidates on our own.”
The Working Families Party only has about a dozen registered members in Philadelphia. It doesn’t hold primaries, it isn’t governed by elected committee members, and the state doesn’t recognize it as a political party like the Republicans and Democrats, according to the Inquirer.
“They believe they’re a party. They’re not,” Fenerty said. “They have 13 people registered in the Working Families Party, 13 people. I have almost 120,000 Republicans.”
“The purpose of the non-Democrat seats is to maintain diversity on city council,” Murray, one of the Republican candidates, told the Inquirer. “They are not an independent party.”
To boost their chances of defeating the Working Families candidates, the Republican Party is only running two candidates for at-large seats on Tuesday — Hasher and Murray.
At a time when rising crime and fentanyl addiction are top issues in Philadelphia, Republicans say they’ve exposed Working Families candidates for radical positions over defunding the police and support for drug-injection sites. They hope that will help them on Tuesday.
“I think people are aware now. They’re alerted to it. We woke them up,” Hasher said.
Oh said he doesn’t know what to expect in a city where Republicans are often disliked, and when both of the Working Families candidates are young and black.
“It’s possible that the two Working Families [candidates] will win simply by saying, ‘get rid of the Republicans,’” he said. “The problem with that is, right now is a time where people want change” and the Working Families candidates are really just the “progressive wing of the Democratic Party.”
Oh is critical of Republican candidates who struggle to make inroads outside of the white, working-class GOP strongholds in northeast and southern Philadelphia. Republicans, he said, need to do a better job building support around the city.
White progressives won’t vote for them, he said, “and most of the black people aren’t voting for you because they have no idea who you are, other than you’re a Republican. You’ve never been in their communities, you have never been to their funerals, you have never been out there on issues, you have not walked the bad neighborhoods trying to stop gun violence, you don’t live in the neighborhood with them, or anything.”
“You can’t just go to, like, one Hispanic restaurant and take a picture and say, ‘I’m in the Latino community,’ because you’re not. And that fact that you think you are is really problematic.”
Oh, who resigned his city-council seat to run for mayor, is hoping to make a good showing on Tuesday with support from a diverse coalition of citizens — Hispanics, Uzbeks, Pakistanis, Indians, African-Americans, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and more — that he’s worked with and nurtured over the years and who don’t typically back Republicans.
He believes a lot of Democratic voters in Philadelphia are pro-family, are people of faith like him, and are tired of typical Democratic politicians.
“I’m not going to say I’m going to win. I don’t know if I’m going to win or lose,” he said. “I have a very good chance of winning because so many Democrats who are committee people or diehard Democrats, they hate Republicans, they’ve never voted for a Republican in their life, they’re voting for me because they want change.”
“But they would not vote for a Republican-backed, machine-backed candidate,” he added.
“In my opinion,” he said, “people want a candidate who is sincere and authentic. They want to see that you had your belly slashed open once upon a time, and you put your intestines back in and you kept going in the same direction.”
Oh, an attorney, has clashed with the Republican establishment throughout his political career, including when he pushed to audit the Philadelphia Parking Authority, seen by many as the last bastion of Republican patronage jobs in the city, according to the Inquirer.
Oh said he’s not part of the party’s “inside crew.” He sees himself as a Lincoln Republican — a “true” Republican and the most popular Republican in Philadelphia — as well as a constitutionalist and a problem solver.
“The Republican Party is usually against me. They’re not against me this time, but they’re not really super for me,” he said. “I’ve got to keep my eye on them.”
Fenerty said the party is 100 percent behind Oh.
“David Oh is our candidate, he is our endorsed candidate. We voted to endorse him. He’s on all our ballots, and we’re campaigning for him on Tuesday,” Fenerty said. “We’re supporting him, and he’s supporting our council candidates.”
Fenerty said he’s tried to make the Philadelphia GOP more inclusive since taking the reins last year. The party’s municipal candidates are all moderate Republicans, but the party’s national brand — “very right wing” and linked closely to former president Donald Trump — makes it hard to win over voters in the city, said Fenerty, who backs Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign.
“I voted for Donald Trump twice,” he said. “I wish Donald Trump no ill will. But I wish he would just go become a retired president and enjoy his money, enjoy himself at Mar-a-Lago, and let different people run for president.”
Hasher, who described himself as moderate businessman with Republican values, wants voters to see more than just a partisan label.
“Politics in Philadelphia is local. It’s about neighborhoods,” he said. “Nothing on the national spectrum is something that would be part of what I could vote for or bring into the city that would matter.”
The election, he said, is going to come down to who turns out – Democratic and Republican moderates or hard-left progressives. If the Working Families candidates prevail, he believes it will be the first step toward a far-left power grab in the city. If the Republicans win, the Working Families Party could become just another third party and an occasional nuisance.
“I think one of two things will happen” on Tuesday, Hasher said. “Either we will have done something very, very special, or we will be wiped out as a party.”
“I will tell you this: It’s going to be a very interesting night.”