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Tag: Chris Rabb

  • Pa. Democrats have mostly positive view of socialism as progressive candidates secure wins

    Pa. Democrats have mostly positive view of socialism as progressive candidates secure wins

    With recent victories by democratic socialists nationwide prompting a fierce debate about the future of the Democratic Party, most Democrats in Pennsylvania have a positive view of socialism — and nearly 40% consider themselves to be a democratic socialist, a new poll found.

    Still, socialism remains broadly unpopular among all voters in the key swing state, according to the poll, conducted by Siena University on behalf of The Inquirer and the New York Times.

    About one-third of likely voters in the midterm elections this fall have a favorable view of socialism and 56% have an unfavorable view. That result closely mirrors a recent national poll from the New York Times and Siena University, raising questions about the appeal of socialism to a wider swath of voters.

    But as Philadelphians prepare to send a democratic socialist to Congress for the first time — and also as talk builds of a larger wave of progressivism across the state — 57% of Democratic likely voters in Pennsylvania have a favorable view of socialism and 24% have an unfavorable view, the poll found.

    “We’re more popular than ever,” said Dan Parker, cochair of Philadelphia’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). “But we still have a long way to go.”

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    The survey of 615 likely Pennsylvania voters conducted from Sept. 15 through 21 comes amid a surge of leftist victories both locally and across the country.

    State Rep. Chris Rabb defeated a pair of more moderate candidates in Philadelphia’s highly competitive congressional primary in May. A democratic socialist, Rabb is highly favored to win in the general election and has spent the months since his primary campaigning for other like-minded candidates.

    Nearly all of those candidates — from Abdul El-Sayed in the high-stakes Michigan U.S. Senate race to a pair of New York candidates boosted by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — have also won their primaries as Rabb and his allies look to grow the ranks of progressives starting on Capitol Hill in January.

    Beyond the next Congress, the leftist wing of the party is hoping for momentum heading into the 2028 races for president and Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat held by Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who has antagonized socialists and made appeals to Republicans.

    “The mainstream Democratic establishment candidates are telling us time and time again to settle for less, to expect nothing other than the status quo,” Parker said. “People are looking for a different set of politics that speaks to their material needs and to the values of freedom that many are striving for.”

    Parker said Philadelphia DSA has been “exploding” since Rabb’s victory. The group mobilized hundreds of volunteers to knock between 75,000 and 100,000 doors during his campaign, and more than 750 new members have joined since May to put the chapter’s total ranks at about 3,000, he said.

    Councilmember Kendra Brooks speaks with colleague Nicolas O’Rourke during a March 12 caucus session. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    Rabb’s success follow that of Pittsburgh’s U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, who was first elected to Congress with DSA support in 2022. Other DSA-backed elected officials include Philadelphia City Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke, as well as State Sen. Nikil Saval, while new primary victories this year include Mark Pinsley and Ce-Ce Gerlach in Lehigh Valley-based legislative races.

    Further growth, Parker said, will come with DSA-backed candidates working in office to “prove that government can exist to serve ordinary people.”

    On that agenda: Advocating for universal healthcare, affordable housing, progressive tax policies, defunding and ultimately abolishing ICE, and ending the wars in Iran and Gaza.

    “What makes DSA distinct — and democratic socialism as a political movement distinct — is that it’s not really just about who has the right ideas,” Parker said. “It’s about a theory of change that puts the vast majority of society in the driver’s seat.”

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    As Democrats look to retake control of Congress and the White House, how much influence that movement will yield remains an open question.

    Moderates like Gov. Josh Shapiro, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, have acknowledged the energy on the left while advocating for a more centrist approach. Shapiro said this summer that the progressive candidates were practicing “performative politics” and would need to deliver if elected. He has also said he expects the party to have the most significant “battle over what we believe in” in more than three decades as the next presidential race gets underway.

    The latest poll shows the party’s base remains divided in Pennsylvania.

    While Democrats in the state remain split in their views of socialism, 38% consider themselves to be a democratic socialist while 57% do not, the poll found. Just over half of Democrats see their party as divided and 45% believe it’s united.

    ‘A tiny, tiny fraction’

    Some observers also cautioned that the number of self-identifying democratic socialists across all of Pennsylvania — a swing state that has largely elected moderates to statewide office — may appear larger than reality. The poll did not define democratic socialism, for one. And progressives have been overrepresented in other polling this year, including in Wisconsin and Michigan, said Lew Irwin, a political science professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

    “A lot of people will claim an affiliation when they actually have an affinity,” Irwin said, adding that it’s still become “increasingly mainstream and acceptable inside the Democratic Party” to identify as socialist.

    J.J. Balaban, a Philadelphia-based ad maker for more moderate Democrats like U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, pointed to the fact that even with the additional energy on the left, the vast majority of Democrats in Washington next year will not be socialist.

    “We’re talking about a tiny, tiny fraction of the Democratic caucus,” he said.

    Balaban said that is one of the reasons why Republicans’ campaign messaging may also not be effective as they try to defend their majorities in the November midterm elections. Republicans have branded all kinds of Democrats as socialists — repeatedly denouncing the entire party as far left and “communist” in its agenda.

    One of the main characters featured in those attacks has been Hasan Piker, the controversial leftist streamer who campaigned with Rabb and other candidates this year. His visit to Philadelphia in April drew hundreds of young progressives but was condemned by Rabb’s opponents and Jewish groups who consider his views antisemitic.

    Online influencer Hasan Piker speaks to attendees at an April 30 fundraiser for State Rep. Chris Rabb’s 2026 congressional campaign at Renata’s Kitchen in West Philadelphia.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer

    Piker’s support of El-Sayed has become a dominant issue in the Michigan race, but the poll of Pennsylvania voters shows he is mostly unknown in the Keystone State.

    Among Pennsylvania likely voters, 23% had an unfavorable view of Piker and 6% had a favorable view. Two-thirds said they had not heard of him — and a higher share of Republicans knew him compared to Democrats.

    “He is a much greater part of the discourse in the Fox cinematic universe than he is in actual Democratic discourse,” Balaban said.

    With polls increasingly showing Democratic momentum this fall, even some conservatives appear to be pushing for Republicans to shift their messaging away from socialism.

    Former U.S. Rep. George Santos, a Republican who has reportedly lived at least partially in the Poconos since President Donald Trump commuted his sentence last year, posted a video Thursday in which he criticized a mailer for U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a freshman Republican in a tight reelection campaign. The mailer claims Bresnahan will “stop the socialists” and lists his Democratic challenger, Paige Cognetti, alongside the “socialist dream team” of progressives Mamdani, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.), and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).

    “Please stop sending me this. It’s silly,” Santos said in the video, adding colorful language to say Pennsylvania Republicans should be focusing on the cost of living.

    “No more rhetoric!” he added.

    Staff writer Joe Yerardi contributed to this article.

  • A political scientist studied the rise of grassroots activism in local government. Philly was his case study.

    A political scientist studied the rise of grassroots activism in local government. Philly was his case study.

    In the five years he spent researching his book Mobilization Politics, Haverford College political scientist Stephen J. McGovern interviewed former Mayor Jim Kenney and other Philadelphia elected officials, political activists, campaign consultants, labor leaders, and protesters.

    The book, which covers events from the 2010s through Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s victory in the 2023 election, uses Philly as a case study to examine the national rise of grassroots progressive politics over the last two decades. McGovern details how local activists employed bottom-up tactics to win major policy victories in areas like criminal justice reform, helping to decrease the jail population, and immigration, leading to Philly becoming a so-called sanctuary city.

    The activists often used an inside/outside strategy, McGovern wrote, of leaning on officials they helped elect, like District Attorney Larry Krasner, and publicly pressuring more moderate ones, like Kenney.

    Haverford College political scientist Stephen J. McGovern authored the 2025 book “Mobilization Politics,” on grassroots activism in Philadelphia.Sean Walsh

    McGovern also explores areas where progressives have fallen short of their goals, and the problems associated with a brand of politics driven by groups that tend to be more affluent and white than the city as a whole. Much of the new type of political organization has been driven by millennials born outside the city, McGovern found, leading to tensions over gentrification.

    McGovern recently spoke with The Inquirer about his 2025 book, the rise of the local progressive movement, and what it all means during Parker’s administration. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

    Your book describes how grassroots activists are really driving the agenda in Philadelphia City Hall, and, as you say, across the nation in local government. Is that an accurate summation of your thesis statement?

    I think that’s fair, and what I want to call attention to is how significant that change is. There may be a lot of people today who assume, “Well, hasn’t that always been the case in city politics?” But no, for much of the mid- to late 20th century, city politics operated in a very different way. It was much more of a top-down phenomenon, and the shift towards more bottom-up politics has been a relatively recent one. And increasingly it’s pretty widespread throughout the United States. So as a scholar of urban politics, I was interested in trying to explain how and why that happened.

    In the book, you describe various political science theories that have sought to explain urban politics in the past. Can you explain how your thesis is different from those previous schools of thought, such as “regime theory”?

    Many scholars have argued that downtown-led regimes wielded a great deal of power over urban policymaking. Regimes were led by business leaders and their allies — law firms, accounting firms, mass media relations firms, and interest groups that had an interest in promoting growth, especially pro-growth labor unions, and, of course, public officials. Basically from 1970 on, every Philadelphia mayor headed a downtown-led regime in a relatively top-down fashion, in terms of governing style. So that’s the backdrop. My book is all about how that pattern began to change around the turn of the century, and then picked up in the 2010s with a burst of social movement activity. Occupy Wall Street really started things off, but then it picked up, especially with Black Lives Matter, the immigrant rights movement, and all of that social movement protest had a catalytic effect on grassroots organizing in cities with respect to a whole host of public policy issues.

    As your book points out, much of the activism has been driven by millennial transplants who have moved into the city. Is it fair to say that trend is the main driver of this change, or one of several factors?

    That is one of the main factors in explaining why there is this big shift. But there are also some underlying changes in the local political environment, what social movement scholars sometimes call the “political opportunity structure.” One of those changes is a decline in the organizing capacity of the downtown business community, which had been so dominant. It started to create a vacuum. Into that vacuum steps young people. Populations had been steadily declining in virtually all big American cities. They started to stabilize around 2000, and you see an influx of young people who are relatively well educated, more likely to be professional, more likely to be progressive, more likely to get involved in local politics. Some people call it the “back to the cities” movement.

    What’s different about these newcomers compared with other left-leaning groups that have sought to impact city politics in the past?

    In the past, a lot of young people tended to get involved in protest politics. People on the left were very wary about engaging in electoral politics. The folks who are moving into Philadelphia after 2000 increasingly are participating in more conventional politics, including electoral politics, and that’s a big change. That escalates when Bernie Sanders runs for president in 2016. One of the lessons learned for lots of people who volunteered for him is: This is something we can do at the local level.

    As you note, the groups driving this style of politics tend to be more affluent, more educated, and more white than Philadelphia as a whole. That’s created a lot of friction. There’s a debate over whether this is a phenomenon that will be limited to gentrified areas, or whether it will grow into a cross-racial or cross-class coalition. Is it fair to say that’s the central question going forward?

    Absolutely. So much of this is turf-oriented. The millennials and Gen Zers moving into Philadelphia tended to congregate in neighborhoods that attract a lot of white, middle-class people who were relatively well educated, and so those became significant bases of progressive politics. The challenge then becomes organizing in other neighborhoods. Some of the grassroots groups made impressive inroads. I’m thinking about campaigns for Larry Krasner, in particular, in lower-income, predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods, where a group like Reclaim Philadelphia or the 215 People’s Alliance were pretty effective. But in many cases, it was fairly difficult for a group like Reclaim Philadelphia to venture into neighborhoods beyond their comfort zones, if you will. They were mindful of some of the skepticism that residents of those neighborhoods felt towards the millennials and Gen Zers flocking into the city and contributing to gentrification. Somebody from Reclaim Philadelphia might be knocking on the door talking about the affordable housing crisis, and people answering the door might look at them and say, “You’re actually a big part of the problem here.” This tension between so-called new Philadelphians and old Philadelphians became more pronounced, and navigating those tensions becomes a real challenge.

    Your book finishes with the 2023 mayor’s race, when Cherelle L. Parker defeated more progressive candidates and won the election with a “law and order” platform. So perhaps that was a surprising twist on your thesis at the end of your research.

    She’s obviously fascinating. She’s a shrewd operator. In the primary election, two progressives split the vote. And being the only prominent Black candidate worked to her advantage. But since she’s been elected, she’s been very skillful about maneuvering in ways that have brought back a return of the traditional kind of urban politics — a top-down governing coalition led by a somewhat resurgent business community and pro-growth unions, the building trades unions, and a somewhat resurgent establishment-oriented Democratic Party, all of which is led by Parker. This is very reminiscent of standard politics of the mid- to late 20th century. So in some ways, Philadelphia is a bit of an aberration in that it’s moved backwards, if you will, recently. But I still see lots of evidence that bottom-up grassroots activism remains a force, and will become much more impactful in the next four years.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks at Vare-Washington Elementary School to highlight the historic education investments included in the 2026-27 state budget, in Philadelphia, July 14, 2026.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
    For what it’s worth, Parker herself seems to be mindful that grassroots politics are still relevant. We reported last year that she ordered a bunch of copies of a book called Performative Outrage: How Manufactured Fury Undermines Local Government and Public Service, and was handing it out to people. So I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a fan of the trends you described. You alluded to Parker returning to a “regime theory” style of politics. What’s an example of that?

    The 76ers’ arena, for example. She was siding with the Sixers and other downtown-oriented interests that wanted to see the arena in Center City on East Market Street, and discounting the views of community groups, most prominently Chinatown. There’s a general mode of governance style associated with Parker that’s very uncomfortable with dealing with grassroots-oriented groups. That’s just not her style. She’s much more comfortable dealing with downtown business elites and people in the building trades unions. Her whole mindset is much more comfortable with the old ways of governing cities.

    Parker won in 2023, when Joe Biden was president. Progressives in Philly and elsewhere seem to do better when Trump is in office. This spring Democrats just elected Chris Rabb, a progressive firebrand, in a high-profile primary for a Philly congressional seat.

    Politics is cyclical. Donald Trump has had that effect of reinvigorating lots of activists. So there was a lull in progressive activism in the city for a while, but it’s on the rise again. But it takes time to regroup, especially on the activist side. Some groups last for a long time, but the norm is for groups to be quite ephemeral. New groups have to pop up, often involving activists who had been involved in the old groups. The transition costs are pretty steep. Somebody like Chris Rabb winning doesn’t surprise me at all. There will probably be more successes in the next two or three years. That said, progressive activists have lots of challenges. They’re in a holding pattern right now.

    Chris Rabb’s election marked a big night for Philly progressives — and a rebuke of the Democratic establishment
    Thanks for your time. That’s all I’ve got. Is there anything I didn’t touch on that you want to include?

    I’m an urban politics specialist. I wrote this book. I devoted five years of my life to it. But in the last year or two, I’ve been so fixated on what’s going on in national politics and Donald Trump and the threat that he and his administration pose to democracy. With that in mind, I just want to say that urban politics in general offers some hope for people who are increasingly demoralized. At the local government level, partisan polarization isn’t nearly as intense. We’ve got divisions between progressives and moderates, but that’s nothing like what we’re seeing in national politics. There’s real hope for city governments to address big problems and offer real solutions. There’s a path forward. One can make a case that right now, democracy in American cities is actually thriving.

  • Chris Rabb’s former campaign treasurer pleads guilty to defrauding him and others of $1 million

    Chris Rabb’s former campaign treasurer pleads guilty to defrauding him and others of $1 million

    Philadelphia State Rep. Chris Rabb’s former campaign treasurer, whom he accused of draining his campaign account and disappearing in the middle of his run for Congress, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal fraud charge.

    Yolanda Brown, a campaign operative formerly based in Florida who worked for Democratic political candidates and social justice causes across the country, appeared in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. She admitted to embezzling a total of about $1 million from 20 clients, including Rabb, between 2022 and 2026.

    Brown, who now lives in Virginia, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and will be required to pay restitution. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 26.

    Rabb, a progressive, went on to win the Democratic nomination in May. He is expected to prevail in the November general election to represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District. There is no Republican candidate, though he faces a long-shot independent opponent.

    Rabb did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    From Florida to Philly, a political consultant kept working as fraud claims piled up against her

    For years, fraud claims from several political campaigns piled up against Brown, who operated Brown Financial & Consulting Services Group and at times worked under her married name, Yolanda Rumph. She was accused of financial impropriety in several states, The Inquirer reported, including shaving money from accounts she controlled and embezzling from a nonprofit client.

    But she continued working in politics and, in August 2025, signed on to work for Rabb, who was in the midst of a highly competitive Democratic primary run for an open seat in Congress representing about half of Philadelphia.

    State Rep. Chris Rabb at an event with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna July 28, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    In January, Ken Welch, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., said that he had reported Brown to law enforcement after she misappropriated $207,000 from his campaign committee.

    The following month, Rabb said that Brown had made a series of unauthorized withdrawals from his campaign. The amount of money embezzled totaled more than $160,000, which constituted most of what was in his campaign’s account at the time, according to paperwork Rabb’s campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission.

    Khambrel Davis, Brown’s attorney, said in an interview with The Inquirer in March that Brown was innocent and merely the victim of a rogue employee who had stolen from her clients.

    But on Wednesday in court, Brown acknowledged that she executed a scheme to defraud her clients of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    Chris Rabb’s former campaign treasurer was charged with wire fraud for routing money into her own bank account

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Livermore told U.S. District Judge Chad F. Kenney that Brown “embezzled client funds in her control to pay for her own personal expenses without authorization from her clients.”

    He added that she “often used client funds to repay other clients from whom she had previously stolen funds.”

    In charging documents, prosecutors wrote that in one instance, Brown steered about $19,000 from the account belonging to Rabb’s campaign — identified in court filings as “Political Campaign #1″ — into a separate account that she controlled. She then transferred $6,000 of that money into her personal bank account.

    That transfer was one of multiple unauthorized transfers that Rabb’s campaign detected. Prosecutors often formally charge a limited scope of wrongdoing if a defendant has agreed to plead guilty.

    Prosecutors described the fraud perpetrated against Rabb’s campaign as part of an “overall scheme” in which Brown defrauded about 20 clients of a total of more than $1.4 million. They wrote that she had repaid clients more than $400,000, for a net loss of about $1 million.

  • Meet the humanitarian aid worker and independent candidate running against Chris Rabb in November

    Meet the humanitarian aid worker and independent candidate running against Chris Rabb in November

    Dennis Mahoney has spent a decade in disaster relief, dispatching humanitarian aid in the wake of devastating hurricanes in the United States and Puerto Rico and poverty crises in 18 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

    Now the 34-year-old independent candidate is using that same determination to engage in an uphill battle as he seeks to represent Philadelphia’s 3rd Congressional District this November.

    Mahoney, from South Philadelphia, is the lone opponent running against State Rep. Chris Rabb, a democratic socialist from Northwest Philly who won the crowded Democratic primary in May to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans.

    “I think it’s going to be a hard fight and a hard run, but I feel so strongly that people in Philadelphia want something different,” Mahoney said of his independent campaign.

    Mahoney will have his work cut out for him to persuade voters to back his grassroots candidacy.

    The 3rd Congressional District is one of the most Democratic-leaning districts in the country, where Rabb won with almost 45% of the vote. Rabb saw national support from big-name progressives, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), and used his victory to support other like-minded candidates throughout the United States.

    And the last time Pennsylvania elected an independent to Congress was in 1920, when Milton W. Shreve of Erie won as an Independent Republican.

    But Mahoney and his allies view his candidacy as an opportunity to present an alternative option after more than half of 3rd District voters in the May primary cast their ballots for Rabb’s opponents. Mahoney’s platform focuses on addressing poverty, expanding access to affordable housing, and investing in education.

    Rabb’s campaign did not comment on Mahoney’s candidacy Wednesday.

    The race comes amid shifting political dynamics in the United States in response to growing frustration with the two-party system.

    On one hand, progressive candidates — many of whom, like Rabb, are part of the Democratic Socialists of America — have been gaining momentum in elections nationwide.

    Earlier this year, meanwhile, a Gallup poll showed a record high of 45% of U.S. adults identified as independents in 2025.

    State Rep. Chris Rabb greets supporters after appearing with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (rear) Tuesday, July 28, 2026, on his “Made in PA: New Economic Patriotism Tour” at the City Institute Library on Rittenhouse Square.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Mahoney said he has belonged to both political parties in the past, but did not find a home in either.

    The first-time political candidate worked in humanitarian aid through his former Washington, D.C., church, the Christian nonprofit Food for the Hungry, and now his own firm, AOI Solutions. He said the experience provides lessons for overcoming partisan division in Congress.

    “Let’s build bridges and partnerships and bring results. And that’s the same work that I did in the disaster relief field, where we would land in a spot where a disaster happened, and we’d work with anyone we could to really make the place come back to whole,” Mahoney said.

    ‘Anti-MAGA’ and ‘anti-DSA’

    It’s those middle-of-the-road qualities that made Mahoney an appealing candidate to Craig Snyder, a registered Republican who led an effort to support Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid two years ago and is now leading the Philly-based Forward Party Victory Fund.

    The super PAC plans to support Mahoney and other independent candidates across the country — including a pair of independent Senate candidates running in GOP-leaning states, Todd Achilles of Idaho and Brian Bengs of South Dakota — this fall via spending on digital ads and text messages. The PAC is also supporting U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, who switched from the GOP to run for reelection in California as an independent, and Kevin Block, an independent running for Rhode Island governor.

    Snyder said the group is an independent offshoot of the Forward Party, founded in 2022 by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. He described the centrist candidates the PAC is backing as both “anti-MAGA” and “anti-DSA.”

    He said a win in one of the group’s targeted races would be “an earthquake in American politics.” But even if Mahoney is unsuccessful, Snyder said, it will be the start of elevating the independent movement in Philly politics.

    “I think people don’t want to be told that they have to vote for somebody just because of the party label,” Snyder said. “I think that they want there to be alternatives, and so it’s our job to make that case.”

    Dennis Mahoney (center) on the campaign trail as he prepares to run against State Rep. Chris Rabb in the general election in the 3rd Congressional District this November.Dennis Mahoney

    Mahoney said, if elected, he would help form the first independent caucus in the U.S. House, contending he would become a coveted vote for both parties that would enable him to influence legislation and score committee assignments.

    But under current House rules — which Kiley has proposed changing — Mahoney would not be able to hold a committee seat if he does not caucus with either party. Kiley, for instance, has continued caucusing with the GOP even after becoming an independent.

    Mahoney pointed to the 19,000 signatures he received for his petition to join the ballot as a sign some voters are open to a choice in the deep-blue district.

    He said he would like to debate Rabb.

    “He talks a lot and engages a lot, and I think that that’s wonderful,” Mahoney said. “But I think at the end of the day, there’s people who are hurting in the district who need somebody who isn’t worried about being on, you know, MSNBC or TV, but who really is like, let’s just get into the community and drive results.”

    Mahoney said he has been connecting with religious leaders, educational organizations, community groups, and youth organizers to hear feedback on what they want public service to look like in the 3rd District.

    The independent will have scant resources to spread his name in just two months but said he is not concerned with raising big money for advertising. He had roughly $8,200 cash on hand in his most recent campaign finance report.

    Rabb had a little more $21,000, but that was after the Democrat raised and spent more than $1.3 million for the primary campaign in which he out-raised his opponents.

    Mahoney, meanwhile, has been trying to meet voters where they are — at running clubs and other fitness groups, for example.

    “I think people find it refreshing to have somebody who wants to represent them out there running alongside them,” he said.

  • Political campaigns are quietly paying influencers to support candidates

    Political campaigns are quietly paying influencers to support candidates

    Josh Greene is a rising left-wing social media star with his own podcast, nearly 800,000 followers, and access to politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York.

    He has used that platform to support dozens of progressive candidates in the midterm elections, ranging from low-profile, down-ballot contests to some of the nation’s marquee Democratic primaries. In camera-facing videos, Greene informs his followers of his preferences, calling some candidates “the most viable” and, in other cases, declaring that “this is the candidate for you.”

    He does not always tell his viewers that he is being compensated for his support.

    But records show that Greene, 26, has received money from at least seven politicians, or outside groups supporting them, in the current campaign cycle, including several congressional candidates in New York and a super political action committee linked to Abdul El-Sayed, the Senate nominee in Michigan. Tom Steyer, a former candidate for governor in California, paid him $21,500.

    Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, who is trying to bring his party together after a divisive primary, at a June 28 campaign event in Ann Arbor, Mich.NICK HAGEN

    Greene, who lives in Southern California and is best known by his handle @joshtheprogressive, is among a growing number of influencers who, at a moment when campaigns are increasingly willing to pay for online attention, appear willing to put their mouth where the money is.

    As more people spend time scrolling on their phones, campaigns view these shows of support from influencers as a vital way to reach voters. They are also significantly less expensive than traditional advertising.

    But unlike campaign mailers, billboards, and television spots, these messages fall into a legal gray area.

    There are no federal regulations requiring disclosure of payments for political support on social media, and only a few states have such rules. That allows influencers, in most instances, to endorse candidates for a fee without ever disclosing those payments in their posts. Creators say some campaigns have even asked them to actively conceal the fact that they’re being compensated, making it impossible to know what’s genuine support — and what is pay-for-play.

    In most cases, the only way a viewer would know an influencer is being paid would be to search a candidate’s campaign finance reports, as the New York Times did to discover the payments. Even then, such compensation is regularly obscured by funneling the payments through middlemen.

    “It’s completely out of control,” said Suzanne Lambert, a progressive influencer and comedian with more than 1.3 million followers between TikTok and Instagram. She said that while she happily promotes candidates she likes, she has “never taken a cent” in exchange for an endorsement and worries that the practice distorts the democratic process. “People don’t know what’s real anymore,” she said.

    Greene defended the idea of influencers getting paid for their work and noted that he accepts money only from candidates and campaigns that he would support anyway. “I turn down offers every single day because I’m not going to take money from anyplace if I don’t agree with it,” he said. (In the case of the Steyer campaign, Greene said he was initially critical but came to see him as the most viable candidate.)

    Still, he suggested there was a need for straightforward and consistent rules on disclosure. “If anything, we do need more clear transparency laws so that creators like myself aren’t confused,” he said.

    Coordinated networks

    The phenomenon is bipartisan.

    In June, Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that at least eight social media accounts were being paid to attack his military record during the Republican primary. In April, a newspaper in Kentucky revealed what appeared to be a coordinated network of influencers boosting Nate Morris — at the time running in a Republican Senate primary — even though none acknowledged being paid for their efforts. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and the Republican nominee for Senate, benefited from a paid campaign on the social platform X when he was facing impeachment in the state several years ago.

    But the question of paid influence has gained particular attention in recent months thanks to aggressive efforts by a handful of Democratic candidates to secure support from well-known influencers.

    During California’s hard-fought primary this spring, Steyer’s campaign paid 17 influencers at least $5,000 apiece, including one, Carlos Eduardo Espina, who has over 14 million followers on TikTok and received a total of $400,000, campaign finance filings show.

    Katie Porter was one of several candidates to deploy paid influencers during the California gubernatorial primary in 2026.Godofredo A. Vásquez

    Former Rep. Katie Porter, who also ran unsuccessfully for California governor, paid 12 influencers a total of $139,500. One of them, a lifestyle creator named Avery Cyrus with 9.5 million followers on TikTok, received $25,000 for what appeared to be a single post claiming “Katie Porter’s thing works.”

    Cyrus’ post was deleted after the Times inquired about it. She did not respond to a request for comment made through the social media agency that represents her, UnderCurrent Media, but the firm’s CEO, Eric Bogard, said in an email that it “was not asked to oversee disclosure compliance, nor were we provided instructions concerning any required disclosures.”

    Under California law, paid political posts on social media must be disclosed. A Times review found three posts supporting Porter on TikTok from influencers who were paid by her campaign that did not include any disclosures. In seven other instances, the disclosures could be found only after clicking through to a hidden section of TikTok for comments flagged “as potentially offensive or disturbing.”

    Sander Jennings, an influencer based in Florida who was paid $22,000, said “the Porter campaign and I agreed to disclose the payment” in TikTok’s comments section in order to get around the site’s practice of removing paid political posts. He said he did not know why the disclosures ended up in the hidden section of the comments.

    TikTok’s terms of service bar all paid political advertising, including “creators being compensated for making branded political content.” In an email, Porter said that “nothing was paid for and posted without review and coordination and compliance with all law.”

    Other political efforts have employed a different strategy, contracting private firms that pay little-known content creators smaller sums to put out a large volume of posts. Those companies, known as user-generated content platforms, or UGCs, operate on the principle that carpet-bombing the internet with hundreds of nearly identical posts is more likely to generate viral content than paying one large influencer the same amount of money to make a single post.

    This spring, a woman posted dozens of videos promoting Steyer in the California primary. Weeks later, she appeared in videos from a different account complaining about the cost of living “here in Michigan” and encouraging people to vote for Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s primary opponent in the Senate race. Then she pivoted to a third account talking about affordability in Wisconsin.

    Corporate records show that the woman, Paige Dunmeyer, actually lives in Kansas City, Mo., and is registered to work with a UGC company called SideShift. It’s not clear how much she was paid for her Michigan and Wisconsin videos, but she has earned more than $30,000 on SideShift for a variety of political and commercial campaigns, according to company records reviewed by the Times. Filings from Steyer’s campaign showed she received $1,320 for her efforts in that race. Dunmeyer did not respond to requests for comment.

    A Times analysis found that at least 87 people registered to work with SideShift had made posts backing Steyer or Stevens, or participated in a third campaign to post video clips on TikTok supporting Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee from Texas. Most of the posts by those creators included no acknowledgment that money changed hands.

    In a statement, SideShift said that it advised creators to follow applicable disclosure requirements, and called for more explicit laws governing how paid content is disclosed on social media.

    “SideShift believes anyone can be a creator and that creators should get paid fairly for work they choose to do,” the company said.

    In June, Kendall Boyle, a TikToker in Michigan with over 21,000 followers, was contacted by a social media marketing agency called Activate HQ offering her a paid opportunity to post videos about “how rising costs are affecting Michigan residents in real life.”

    When she asked who was footing the bill, she was told it was Majority Forward, a dark money group linked to the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, email correspondence reviewed by the Times shows. Boyle said she was turned off by warnings in those emails from Activate HQ that “disclosure is not required and the paid partnership label will not be included in any posts” and also that Majority Forward “will not be mentioned” in her content.

    “It was one of those things where something isn’t fitting right,” Boyle said.

    In a statement, Majority Forward said the language in the email “explains disclosure requirements necessary under FEC rules, which were fully followed.”

    Little regulation

    Just four states have laws or regulations requiring influencers to disclose paid political messaging, but they apply only to state and local races, not federal contests. Although regulations for social media have been proposed multiple times to the FEC, it has never taken action. The Federal Trade Commission, which requires disclosure of paid commercial content on social media, makes an exception for political messaging.

    Rep. Mark Takano (D., Calif.) introduced a bill in June that would require anyone paid by a candidate or political committee to clearly disclose that fact in the same way that traditional campaign materials are required to note such payments.

    In an interview, Takano said he was inspired to draft the legislation after online sleuths revealed that numerous influencers had been making paid endorsements in the California governor’s race without proper disclosure, as required in that state.

    “It’s unfair when an influencer is allowed to be silent or not transparent about money they’re taking from a candidate, making it seem like what they’re saying is authentic and not influenced by money,” he said.

    Takano acknowledges that there are some potential loopholes in the bill. For instance: Campaigns often obscure payments to influencers by hiding them under layers of vendors and subvendors.

    Porter, for example, hired Activate HQ for “influencer marketing services,” and it in turn paid 13 creators to bolster her campaign for governor. One of them, a political influencer in Los Angeles named Dash Dobrofsky, who also posted in support of Stevens in Michigan, received $15,500 from Porter’s campaign. Dobrofsky did not respond to a request for comment.

    Steyer’s campaign, for its part, hired multiple digital strategy firms to manage social media, including one called Group Project, which hired a Los Angeles company, Gutsy Media, which paid Greene through UnderCurrent, which represents him.

    Those payment chains are visible because California is one of a handful of states that require campaigns to report payments to subvendors. There is no such obligation for campaigns for federal office. “Every dollar spent by this campaign is publicly disclosed and available for anyone to see,” the Steyer campaign said in a statement.

    ‘Social media consulting’

    State Rep. Chris Rabb at a July 28 event with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Occasionally, campaigns or independent expenditure groups will reveal direct payments to influencers, such as the super PAC Freedom PA, which supported socialist candidate Chris Rabb’s successful bid to win a Pennsylvania House primary in May. It has disclosed payments to nearly 50 influencers for “social media consulting,” among them Greene, who received $750 and posted a video celebrating the candidate’s victory.

    Other committees listing payments to Greene in federal filings employed less illuminating descriptions. Chuck Park, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New York’s Queens borough this year, listed a $300 disbursement to Greene as “staff salary.” Greene posted at least five videos promoting Park, none of which state that he had received payment.

    Park, in an interview, said that Greene was in fact not employed by the campaign, but said that “our campaign absolutely leaned into new media” and that he spent time with Greene in Queens filming a series of videos.

    Greene disclosed being paid on three of his posts about Steyer and told the Times that those videos were the only ones that he was specifically contracted by the Steyer campaign to produce. He said he didn’t receive compensation for prior posts about the candidate.

    Greene has also supported Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) in a competitive primary against Rep. Seth Moulton, and last month, he posted a video accusing Moulton of “posturing to be someone they really aren’t.” He posted a second video this month critiquing Moulton, this time for taking corporate political money.

    Neither video includes disclosures, and FEC filings don’t show any payments to Greene related to Markey’s reelection bid. But a spokesperson for Commonwealth Together, a super PAC that is supporting Markey, said it had paid Greene $3,500 for “digital communications consulting” through his agency, UnderCurrent.

    Greene, in a text message, acknowledged the payment to support Markey, saying he took it “because I believe he is by far the more progressive candidate in the race.”

    The murkiness has left some in the political world uneasy. Last month Rynn Reed, the founder of Creator Congress, an organizing hub for influencers interested in politics, introduced a code of conduct for the group that would require creators to make clear when they’re paid, whether required by law or not.

    “With no standards,” Reed said, “there’s going to be a race to the bottom.”

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • Chris Rabb warns of ‘great peril’ for Democrats if party ignores Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and other progressive wins

    Chris Rabb warns of ‘great peril’ for Democrats if party ignores Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and other progressive wins

    WASHINGTON — Chris Rabb is on a winning streak.

    Since his victory in Philadelphia’s highly contested Democratic congressional primary in May, the state lawmaker and presumptive successor to retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans has campaigned across the country — going nine for 10 in races where he’s supported progressives against more establishment-backed, moderate Democrats.

    That wave of momentum — for a left-leaning faction hoping to transform the next generation of the Democratic Party — culminated this week in Michigan, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won a consequential U.S. Senate primary in the key swing state.

    Though not a self-described democratic socialist like Rabb, El-Sayed ran on a similar anti-corporation, anti-Israel platform that focused on enacting policies like Medicare for All and dismantling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Rabb, who was on the ground in Detroit for the final push of the campaign and at El-Sayed’s victory party on Tuesday, said the Michigander prevailed “against extraordinary odds.”

    U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, with establishment support and about $62 million in outside spending on her behalf, had a roughly 9-to-1 spending advantage over El-Sayed, according to The New York Times. Her loss amid that kind of massive spending “is a testament to the power of economic populism and the growing frustration with incrementalism,” Rabb said.

    “His primary win proves that economic populism and bold progressivism has growing support across the ideological spectrum among Democrats whether they’re voting in Michigan or Pennsylvania,” Rabb said.

    The five-term state representative from East Mount Airy has thrown his energy into other campaigns as his own is pretty much complete. In one of the bluest in the country, he defeated a pair of more moderate Democrats — State Sen. Sharif Street and physician Ala Stanford — and will not face a Republican opponent in the November election. The district covers about half of the city, from South Philadelphia through the Northwest.

    Rabb began looking beyond his district borders almost immediately after the primary.

    In New Jersey’s Trenton-based congressional district, he campaigned for Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former combat surgeon who has also provided medical care to Gazans during the war with Israel. In New York, he threw his weight behind Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, two of the democratic socialists also backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

    He turned to other candidates in California, Colorado and Michigan as he door-knocked, called voters and appeared in virtual events.

    “Ever since May 19, which was the night I won, I’ve been paying it forward with so many amazing candidates,” Rabb said during a recent virtual fundraiser for El-Sayed in which Rabb said he was signing and giving away the pink “Philadelphia” baseball hat he was wearing to a lucky donor.

    Rabb hasn’t weighed in on every battle between progressives and moderates. He did not endorse Cori Bush, the former member of Congress and democratic socialist who failed in her attempt at a comeback in Missouri this week. He also has not endorsed every congressional candidate promoted by two key national coalitions that supported him — Justice Democrats, which has been a force behind the election of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, and the Democratic Socialists of America.

    The one candidate he endorsed who did not win was Saikat Chakrabarti, a former campaign manager and chief of staff to Ocasio-Cortez who tried to beat former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked successor in San Francisco.

    And not all of Rabb’s endorsees are guaranteed to join him in Congress next year. Justin Pearson, a Tennessee state lawmaker who won a U.S. House primary on Thursday, will be the nominee in a state where Republicans redistricted this year in an attempt to root out Democratic incumbents. Pearson’s district is considered “solid Republican” by the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan group that rates competitive districts.

    While some Democrats have questioned whether progressives can win competitive general election races, Rabb said he was “confident that strategically supporting anti-establishment populist candidates who bring with them new, more active and enthusiastic voters will significantly increase turnout in November.”

    “Ignoring the unique strengths of such candidates and campaigns will be at the Democratic Party’s great peril,” he added.

    That sentiment echoed other comments he’s made in recent months as more centrist leaders in his party questioned the progressive momentum. In June, he responded to an interview in which Gov. Josh Shapiro called the democratic socialists who won in New York an example of “performative politics.” Those candidates would now need to govern effectively, he said, adding that they were not indicative of the types of Democrats winning in Pennsylvania.

    “You’re seeing very different-looking congressional races, and certainly very different Democratic candidates here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro told CNN, prompting Rabb to respond on social media with, “Ummm…”

    Shapiro, a popular figure as he seeks reelection this fall, has been lending his support to Democrats in four competitive congressional seats in Pennsylvania that are held by Republicans, including a swing district in suburban Bucks County. Flipping those seats in a way that could help Democrats capture the U.S. House majority has been a top priority and has further fueled speculation that Shapiro is eyeing a run for the White House in 2028.

    At the same time, Shapiro has not appeared with or supported Rabb during his campaign, though his team has said the governor looks forward to working with whoever replaces Evans.

    As Rabb has crisscrossed the country, he’s also drawn more ire from the state’s other most nationally prominent Democrat — U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, who Rabb dismissively refers to as “the F word.”

    Fetterman has included Rabb in his broad denouncements of progressives who are winning Democratic primaries. Progressives like Rabb, meanwhile, have indicated they hope to replace Fetterman with a progressive candidate in 2028.

    “Rabb, he won, and he ran on being a very, very anti-Israel guy,” Fetterman said in early June at an American Jewish Committee conference in Washington. “It’s actually a virtue (in the modern Democratic Party)… It’s heartbreaking for me.”

    After El-Sayed’s win this week against a candidate who received more money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee than possibly any other candidate on record, Rabb and the coalition behind him have shown no signs of slowing down.

    “Ground Zero was Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, winning a key congressional primary,” Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said on the livestreamed fundraiser with Rabb this week.

    The “ripple effects of winning a battleground Senate contest,” like in Michigan, Green said, will be significant.

    “The message will be undebatable that we won, that we’re on the rise, and that we can win anywhere,” he said.

  • Chris Rabb’s former campaign treasurer was charged with wire fraud for routing money into her own bank account

    Chris Rabb’s former campaign treasurer was charged with wire fraud for routing money into her own bank account

    A Florida-based political consultant who once worked as the campaign treasurer for Philadelphia congressional candidate Chris Rabb was charged Friday with wire fraud after she defrauded more than 20 clients out of about $1 million, according to federal prosecutors.

    Yolanda Brown was charged in federal court in Philadelphia with one count of wire fraud, according to documents unsealed Friday. She was charged by information, which typically indicates a person intends to plead guilty.

    She did not have an attorney listed in court records, and attempts to reach a lawyer who previously represented her were not immediately successful.

    Brown had been under scrutiny for months over allegations from campaigns in several states that she had mismanaged, embezzled, or taken unauthorized withdrawals from accounts meant to support political candidates.

    And Rabb accused her earlier this year of making unauthorized withdrawals from his campaign accounts, saying he had fired her and reported the allegations to federal authorities.

    From Florida to Philly, a political consultant kept working as fraud claims piled up against her
    State Rep. Chris Rabb greets supporters on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    While Brown worked on Rabb’s campaign in 2025 and early 2026 — identified in court documents only as “Political Campaign #1″ — prosecutors said she set up new bank accounts on which she could serve as a signatory. She then transferred $19,000 into one of those accounts, they said, and went on to steer about $6,000 into her personal bank account without Rabb’s knowledge.

    In April, Rabb’s campaign said it identified about $160,000 that had been routed into the account Brown had set up. But it was not clear Friday how much of that may have been embezzled for Brown’s personal use, and it is also not uncommon for prosecutors to formally charge a more limited scope of wrongdoing if a defendant has agreed to plead guilty.

    Still, in charging documents, prosecutors said Brown, who ran Brown Financial & Consulting Services Group and worked primarily with Democrats, committed her fraud against Rabb actions as part an “overall scheme” in which she defrauded about 20 clients out of more than $1 million. Prosecutors did not name the other victims, or offer details on how the other cases unfolded.

    Brown has been accused of other wrongdoing in recent years.

    Earlier this year, Ken Welch, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., said Brown embezzled more than $200,000 from his campaign committee. Another Florida-based political consultant also accused Brown of wiring $25,000 out of PAC’s bank account.

    And in 2024, Brown — who also used different surnames, including her married name, Yolanda Rumph — pleaded no contest to felony embezzlement in California, where prosecutors said she stole from two different companies, including a nonprofit. She was ordered to pay $330,000 in restitution but served no jail time.

    An attorney for Brown, Khambrel Davis, told The Inquirer earlier this year that one of Brown’s employees — not Brown — had actually committed the most recent fraud in Philadelphia and Florida.

    But the employee had since disappeared, Davis said, and “everyone’s just assuming [Brown] must have done this. They’re kind of putting together this narrative that she’s just this habitual thief.”

    Rabb — a longtime state representative who won a competitive Democratic primary this spring in the state’s 3rd Congressional District — declined to comment.

  • Three Philly City Council districts emerge as key battlegrounds in the 2027 election

    Three Philly City Council districts emerge as key battlegrounds in the 2027 election

    Philadelphia City Council is already looking to 2027. And with all 17 seats on the ballot next spring, the elections are shaping up to be a pivotal test of whether the city’s established politicians can withstand a rising tide of frustration with the party among Democratic voters.

    All of the incumbents have said they intend to run for reelection, and several are likely to face serious challenges from new candidates focused on grassroots organizing and progressive groups — hoping to seize the opportunity presented by a nationwide leftward shift amid President Donald Trump’s second term.

    Three districts have emerged as key battlegrounds.

    In the North Philadelphia-based 5th District, at least four people are considering challenging Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., a freshman lawmaker who has championed controversial legislation and at times publicly clashed with constituents.

    All 17 City Council members may be running for reelection. That would be the first time in at least 75 years.

    And the city’s progressive organizations, emboldened by a series of wins locally and nationally, are targeting two other districts: the 1st, which stretches from South Philadelphia to Fishtown and is represented by Councilmember Mark Squilla, and the 8th, which includes parts of North and Northwest Philadelphia and is represented by Councilmember Cindy Bass.

    “We’re definitely feeling confident,” said Robert Saleem Holbrook, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Straight Ahead. “Anyone who is going to be running under a progressive banner or a progressive movement is going to have to be running against the establishment, not toward it.”

    A competitive race also appears to be taking shape for the seven Council seats that represent the city at-large.

    Five of those seats are all but certain to be won by Democrats, making the May 2027 primary the key election in deep-blue Philadelphia.

    The other two at-large seats — set aside for Council members outside the majority party under the city’s Home Rule Charter — will be decided in the November 2027 general election. Currently, the two minority party seats are held by Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke of the left-leaning Working Families Party.

    Several insiders said one bold-faced name is considering a run for a Democratic seat: Jane Golden, the well-known founder and executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, who is stepping down from her full-time role later this month.

    No Philly mayor has lost reelection in modern history. So does Mayor Parker have anything to worry about?
    Jane Golden, founder and executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, takes the stage during the dedication of the Super Bowl LIX mural at Spike’s Trophies on June 17, 2025 in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Golden, 73, said last week that she is not currently running for Council, but acknowledged she has thought about it for years.

    “It’s always something that is tempting to me, because I just love the city so much,” she said. “I feel honored that people even think of me.”

    Progressives eye Bass’ North Philly seat

    Philadelphia’s progressive activists this year see two key opportunities to expand the loosely organized left-leaning bloc on Council, which currently consists of four members. Winning additional seats could also grow their influence by enticing more moderate members to vote alongside them if they believe primary voters are moving left.

    Progressives have in the last year authored some of the most high-profile legislation to come out of Council, including one package of bills by Brooks and Councilmember Rue Landau meant to set limits on federal immigration enforcement in the city and another by O’Rourke that codified new rights for renters.

    Leftists have notched high-profile wins in Democratic primaries across the country this year, including in Philadelphia, where democratic socialist State Rep. Chris Rabb (D., Philadelphia) bested more moderate candidates for a seat in Congress representing about half of the city. The district is one of the most Democratic in the nation.

    Chris Rabb’s election marked a big night for Philly progressives — and a rebuke of the Democratic establishment

    Next on progressives’ wish list: ousting Bass and Squilla, two more centrist Democrats who have both been on Council since 2012.

    In Bass’ 8th District, longtime labor organizer Seth Anderson-Oberman may challenge Bass for a second time after losing to her in 2023 by just 423 votes.

    Anderson-Oberman, 55, the executive director of the progressive group Reclaim Philadelphia, said last week that he is “leaning” toward taking another swing.

    “We’re in a moment in this country and this city where people have had enough,” he said. “People are looking for new answers. … Cindy represents the old way of doing things.”

    Union organizer Seth Anderson-Oberman, running for 8th District City Council, joins in a small rally with community and Happy Hollow Advisory Board members along Wayne Avenue at Happy Hollow Playground in Philadelphia on April 2, 2023.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer

    Another Council run by Anderson-Oberman may test how far progressive momentum can go in Philadelphia. He was a member of the Communist Party USA in his 20s, and has said he is proud of that experience.

    Bass, 58, said she is ready for the race no matter who her opponent is.

    In June, she survived a contentious fight for another four-year term as Democratic leader of Mount Airy’s 22nd Ward. She was criticized for her handling of the process, and the party ordered a redo of the election.

    She and her progressive opponent, Octavius Price, tied, then struck a power-sharing agreement. Through it all, Bass said, longtime residents stuck by her — and she is confident voters will do the same next year.

    “My voters are people who are based in this community, committed to this community, intend to stay in the communities that they are in,” she said.

    City Councilmember Cindy Bass (center) attends the watch party for Democratic candidate for mayor Cherelle L. Parker at Laborers 332 in Philadelphia on May 16, 2023.Heather Khalifa / Staff Photographer

    Jeff Jones, a community leader and social justice advocate from Germantown, has also said he intends to run in the 8th District.

    “I want to bring that new vision and a new voice to the 8th District, where residents and children and families can know that their voice matters, their concerns will be heard, and their challenges will be met,” said Jones, 61, a first-time political candidate.

    Squilla could see a lefty challenger

    Leftists are also eying Squilla’s seat, which represents the area along the Delaware River from Pennsport to Kensington. Since Squilla took office in 2012, the district has transformed from a bastion of working-class white voters to one of the most progressive swaths of the city.

    Squilla, 63, who has strong labor ties and is one of the most pro-development district Council members, said being a centrist has likely put a target on his back in the 2027 election.

    Another contributing factor may be Squilla’s support for controversial legislation in 2024 to approve the 76ers’ since-abandoned plan to build a new arena in Center City. The project, which would have been in Squilla’s 1st District, was opposed by advocates for Chinatown, which the arena would have bordered.

    Councilmember Mark Squilla arrives in Council chambers on Nov. 12, 2024, before the start of a public hearing on a proposed Sixers arena.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    Despite the fierce objections, Council approved the project with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s support in December 2024. Weeks later, the basketball team announced it was abandoning its Center City plan and would instead build its next arena in South Philly.

    Squilla said he is prepared to defend his actions, noting that he worked to ensure any arena deal would benefit his district and that many of those promises are moving forward despite the 76ers withdrawing their proposal.

    “The goal as an elected official, and also as a leader, is not always to make the popular decision,” he said. “The goal is to have a process to make the decision that would be best for the people around it.”

    One prominent opponent of the Center City arena plan was Will Gross, the owner of Ox Coffee in Queen Village and a progressive who is the Democratic leader of the 2nd Ward. He is seen by political insiders and progressive organizations as the most likely candidate to take on Squilla.

    Gross declined to comment.

    In this 2023 file photo, Will Gross and Kay Yoon, of the No Arena in Chinatown group, deliver petitions to Councilmember Mark Squilla. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    A progressive challenger may also emerge in the North Philly and Kensington-based 7th District, which is represented by Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.

    In 2023, Lozada, Council’s only Latina member, won decisively over social worker Andres Celin, who argued for a more social services-driven response to address longstanding issues in the beleaguered district.

    Some insiders have speculated that Celin may run again. He declined to comment.

    Lozada, 55, said she “can’t focus” on potential challengers.

    “If I spend my time listening to the buzz about who is running,” she said, “we won’t get any work done.”

    A battle takes shape in the 5th District

    In the 5th District, a seat that represents parts of North Philadelphia and Center City, a handful of Democratic challengers are lining up to take on Young, 40, who is seen as one of Council’s most vulnerable members.

    That is in part because of the unusual way in which he was elected in 2023. He ended up being the only Democrat on the ballot after several others, including party officials’ preferred candidates, were removed amid legal challenges.

    Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr. in chambers as City Council meets Dec. 11, 2025.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    One of those candidates was Curtis Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former City Council President Darrell L. Clarke. Two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the campaign dynamics, said Wilkerson is considering running for the seat again next year. He did not respond to a request for comment.

    Also likely to run is Jalon Alexander, an attorney who unsuccessfully ran for an at-large seat on Council in 2023. Alexander, 33, formed an exploratory committee last year and is expected to formally declare his candidacy later this summer.

    Two others are also considering running.

    Dustin Dove, a lawyer and the president of the Fairmount Civic Association, said neighbors and community leaders have encouraged him to get in the Council race, and he is “taking the possibility of running seriously.”

    “I think our city government should work for everyone by keeping our neighborhoods safe and streets walkable, making housing affordable, and ensuring fairness and access in public services,” Dove, 38, said last week.

    Jalon Alexander, an attorney and community advocate, speaks to attendees at a meeting about potential SEPTA budget cuts hosted at Garden of Prayer Church in Strawberry Mansion on June 9, 2025.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer

    And Max Tuttleman, 37, a philanthropist who unsuccessfully ran for an at-large seat in 2023, said he “cares deeply about the 5th District and would never close the door to serving Philadelphia.”

    He added that “Center City and the neighborhoods around it should be growing faster than they are.”

    That was a subtle dig at Young, who critics say has been too hostile to development in his district by opposing some residential projects.

    Young said in an interview last week that he intends to run for reelection, but that challengers are not his focus.

    “I‘m focused on serving my constituency, serving my community,” he said. “The work that we’ve been doing will hopefully earn the support of the residents of the 5th District.”

    A smaller, but competitive, at-large field

    Over the last several election cycles, dozens of candidates lined up to run for at-large seats during a time of immense turnover in Council.

    But with seven incumbents all looking toward reelection in 2027, there may be fewer challengers who line up to take them on. So far, only Golden and a handful of others have emerged as possible contenders.

    David Alexander Jenkins, a cultural strategist known for delivering impassioned speeches during Council’s public comment section, said he is considering a run, encouraged by fellow community members.

    “When the community that is around you constantly pushes you to intercede on their behalf, then it’s because they have trusted you to do what it is that you do best,” Jenkins, 39, said. “I think it would be incredibly unwise to ignore that.”

    And Jude Husein, 28, a Palestinian-born community activist who was raised in North Philly, has already launched her campaign. If her bid is successful, Husein, a former staffer for State Sen. Art Haywood, would be the first member of Gen Z on Council.

    In this 2023 file photo, Jude Husein, of North Philadelphia, speaks at a rally for a Day of Solidarity event at the Art Museum steps.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer

    Leaders of progressive organizations said they are closely watching her candidacy. However, Husein is not exactly running as a leftist. She said that her policy positions are varied and that she will seek endorsements from any institution that is “values-aligned.”

    “I’m running because I think government should work for the people who pay for it, and should make neighborhoods affordable and safer,” she said.

    Also in the running for Council at-large seats are Billy McCann, 46, a former teacher who lives in Port Richmond, and Isaiah T. Martin, 26, who lives in West Philly and leads a community development nonprofit. The pair, who both said they are progressive, have established something of a slate with Jones, who is challenging Bass in the 8th District.

    They said they would prioritize public education, affordability, housing assistance, and government accountability, and they argued that establishment Democrats are failing to connect with voters.

    “A new day is coming,” said Martin, another member of Gen Z who would make history on Council if elected. “It’s time we get people who are going to do the actual work and not just sit here and talk about it.”

  • Graham Platner and the Democrats’ war on expertise

    Graham Platner and the Democrats’ war on expertise

    Let’s suppose you’re the kind of Democrat who — like me — derides Republicans for declaring war on expertise. From vaccines and climate change to tariffs and foreign aid, we say, the GOP has discarded professional knowledge in its quest for power.

    Why, then, do we support candidates who lack expertise — and experience — themselves?

    That’s the question we should be asking about Graham Platner, whose campaign for the Senate is on the ropes following a former girlfriend’s claim that he had sexually assaulted her. Platner has never held elected office; his only political experience was a stint on his town planning board.

    How can we be OK with that? If we value expertise in government, we should want leaders who have demonstrated it. But Democratic voters seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

    In the recent New York primary, they chose Darializa Avila Chevalier to replace five-term, 71-year-old Rep. Adriano Espaillat. The first Dominican American — and the first formerly undocumented immigrant — to be elected to Congress, Espaillat helped win measures protecting delivery drivers and home-based childcare providers. But he lost to a 32-year-old graduate student who has zero political experience.

    Darializa Avila Chevalier (center), alongside New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (left), greets supporters after winning the Democratic nomination for New York’s 13th Congressional District.LEXI PARRA

    Neither does Melat Kiros, 29, who unseated 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, in the Democratic primary in Colorado. She has worked as a lawyer and — more recently — as a barista. But when it comes to politics, she is a complete novice.

    Then there’s Platner. A combat veteran and oyster farmer, he ran as an aw-shucks common man. That meant eschewing what he called “the establishment,” including experienced political consultants and pollsters.

    But guess what? It turns out experience matters. The young Democratic operative who recruited Platner to run for Senate bypassed the standard background check, which usually takes a few weeks. He opted instead for a three-day “investigation” by a firm that didn’t even bother to interview Platner or solicit a questionnaire from him.

    To its credit, the firm flagged some of Platner’s controversial Reddit posts. But a more thorough — and, yes, professional — background check would surely have uncovered his “unsettling” behavior around women, which former girlfriend Jenny Racicot described to reporters last month.

    And earlier this week, Racicot said Platner had shown up drunk at her house — after she asked him to stay away — and forcibly had sex with her. Platner denied the charge, but he said he was “mindful of the political reality it would inflict” and that he was taking time to “reflect” on how to proceed.

    Leading Democrats — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — called on Platner to quit the race, and I agree with them. But I also think the party should reflect on why we continue to elevate candidates who lack any real political experience.

    To defenders of these outsiders, their inexperience is a selling point. If you want to challenge the establishment, the argument goes, you need people who aren’t tainted by it — which was a major sentiment behind then-29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset in New York’s 14th Congressional District in 2018. Ever since, some have argued, that’s the only way to get progressives into power.

    Nonsense. Here in Philadelphia, Chris Rabb scored a stunning victory in the May primary race to replace Rep. Dwight Evans. Like Chevalier and Kiros, Rabb calls himself a democratic socialist. But he also has significant experience in government.

    Jonathan Zimmerman wonders how voters can be OK with supporting Graham Platner, a Senate candidate who has never held elected office.JORDAN GALE

    Rabb served for five terms in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he sponsored bills to repeal the death penalty and to promote restorative justice in criminal sentencing. He knows his way around Washington, too. Earlier in his career, he worked as an aide to Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American woman in the U.S. Senate.

    Whatever you think of Rabb’s politics, he is qualified for the job. And we should care about that. Just like we shouldn’t make a housing official the director of national intelligence, we shouldn’t make an oysterman a member of Congress. To serve effectively in government — like any other professional role — you need knowledge and experience.

    And if you think otherwise, just look at the guy in the White House. America elected 44 presidents before Donald Trump. Forty-one of them had held prior political office; the other three (Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower) were victorious U.S. war generals.

    By contrast, Trump was a failed real estate baron and a successful reality TV figure. His two presidencies have been monuments to incompetence because he doesn’t believe in expertise. Or in anything, really, except himself. Remember “I alone can fix it”? He didn’t, and he won’t.

    Experts don’t know everything, of course, and they can be wrong (see: COVID-19 lockdowns). But they do know more than the rest of us about what they do. In choosing candidates like Graham Platner, Democrats turned their backs on that principle. Let’s hope they rediscover it before it’s too late.

    Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Schooling Citizens: How Education Can Save Democracy,” which will be published next spring by American Philosophical Society Press.

  • Philadelphia’s historic sites draw tourists from around the world. They’re getting an incomplete version of the President’s House.

    Philadelphia’s historic sites draw tourists from around the world. They’re getting an incomplete version of the President’s House.

    On a sweltering and humid summer afternoon — as tourists and historical reenactors milled about Old City ahead of 250th anniversary celebrations — Cristian Marín guided his family through the President’s House.

    Loyal soccer fans, Marín’s family had traveled from Colombia to visit their son in Philadelphia, attend the World Cup matches, and see the Revolutionary Era sites.

    But it was up to Marín, 37, to play tour guide last Friday and explain to his family why large gaps of brick wall were covered by paper adorned with handwritten messages expressing their indignation with President Donald Trump after his administration removed exhibits about slavery at George Washington’s former home in Independence National Historical Park.

    Marín’s family started laughing from pure disbelief about the “craziness of the situation,” he said.

    Marín’s relatives are among an influx of tourists visiting Philadelphia in the lead up to the city’s Semiquincentennial festivities only to find themselves confronted with evidence of the largely partisan battle playing out over how to tell the complicated story of America’s founding.

    “For me, it’s shocking to see a country trying to erase that history,” said Marín, a freelance journalist. “I think it’s important to remember our past in order to just not repeat those kinds of things.”

    Cristian Marín, 37, tours the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park last week. Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer

    Ahead of the 250th, both Philadelphians who have been engaged in the fight to protect historical exhibits and tourists who have wandered through the President’s House for the first time, have lamented the Trump administration’s changes to the exhibit, which was largely dismantled by the administration earlier this year.

    They told The Inquirer that the missing panels, such as those that discuss the brutality of slavery, do a significant disservice to understanding the full picture — even the ugly parts — of U.S. history.

    “History is going to be out there, and the more we share history, the better for everybody,” said Hector Vargas, 40, from New York. “For the new generation, and even ourselves, because this is something from the past and we need to understand better — what happened and how this great country basically became the great country it is.”

    The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that from 250th-related events alone the city will welcome over 1.5 million overnight visitors in 2026.

    But the turmoil facing the President’s House is hanging over the celebrations, as the site’s stakeholders and the Trump administration battle over which version of history residents and visitors will see as they celebrate on Independence Mall.

    Judges presiding over lawsuits related to the President’s House or other threats by the Trump administration to change historical content at national parks have viewed the Fourth of July as a deadline to set the record straight as to whether the federal government has the authority to rewrite history.

    Some advocates believe the Trump administration saw it that way, too.

    Visitors read unofficial signage put up to protest the Trump administration’s changes to the President’s House site, which memorializes the nine people enslaved by George Washington in Philadelphia. Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer

    The Inquirer reported that the federal government also quietly removed mentions of slavery from Independence Hall and a panel under Thomas Jefferson’s portrait at the Second Bank — sending a new wave of outrage among historians and advocates ahead of this weekend.

    “In the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Declaration of Independence, there’s probably increased impetus and motivation to get these changes installed before the dawn of the Fourth,” said Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.

    ‘They want to make us believe that slavery did not happen’

    Perched on folding chairs bordered by patriotic banners that flapped in the wind, dozens of Philadelphians spent their Friday night at the People’s Plaza, a concrete gathering space just steps away from the President’s House eight days before the 250th anniversary.

    A truck displaying a digital screen with the name of the event, “Trump Fascism: Historical Erasure and the Battle Over the Truth,” parked across the street.

    With Independence Hall towering behind them, state Rep. Chris Rabb, attorney and advocate Michael Coard, civil rights organizer Masaru Edmund Nakawatase, and visual artist Dread Scott railed against the federal government’s changes to history at an event hosted by Refuse Fascism, an anti-Trump organization.

    The gathering is one of many events opponents to the Trump administration’s actions are holding in the days surrounding the 250th. Coard’s group, Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, is hosting its annual Black Independence Day on July Fourth at the President’s House.

    “We have so much power and it scares these people. If it didn’t scare them, why would they be worried about this exhibit right here?” Rabb (D., Philadelphia) declared, pointing at the President’s House.

    Rabb, who will represent parts of Philadelphia in Congress after winning the Democratic primary for the Third District in May, has often spoken of how he is a descendant of both a signer of the Declaration of Independence who enslaved people and of Black abolitionists.

    The Trump administration had spent a year eyeing the President’s House and other exhibits before they abruptly dismantled the site in January, just weeks into the nation’s 250th year. Last year, the president had issued an executive order directing parks to conduct a content review of materials that could “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

    Subsequent legal battles have allowed some — but not all — of original panels to be reinstalled, though the administration can now install its own spin on history at the President’s House, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has ruled.

    But the struggle to confront the full scope of U.S. history is baffling to some visitors, like Camila Ordenana, 24, from Ecuador. Ordenana, who ventured from Guayaquil to Philadelphia to attend a World Cup game, said she has never seen this kind of censorship in her other travels.

    “It is weird, because we have been to several places, several historical cities, like, I can remember going to the U.K. or going to Germany, and you can learn about the experience in a very neutral and respectful way,” Ordenana said.

    Katrie White, 53, from Illinois, traveled to Philadelphia specifically for sightseeing to learn more about African American history. She said she was disturbed by the removal of the signs.

    “They want to make us believe that slavery did not happen,” White said. “And that’s how it affected African Americans, that it wasn’t a big deal, that it made us better. But of course, we all know that it didn’t, and it really did affect us. It was a trauma that is still carried on to this day.”

    Many Philadelphians appear to agree.

    A recent Suffolk University / Inquirer poll found that a quarter of city residents see preserving historic sites as Philadelphia’s top responsibility to the nation ahead of the 250th.

    Richard Porter (left), 52, of Michigan, at the President’s House last week.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer

    Gathered by the Market Street entrance of the President’s House last Friday, looking at the colorful illustration panels that remained, Richard Porter grappled with the impact of the removals, saying that without the educational information, “We’ll repeat it over and over again.”

    The Michigan resident said that the country is at a point where it needs to move forward but that the changes to the President’s House are sowing further divisions.

    “This is an everyday battle. It’s not just today or for the 250; this is all the time,” Porter said.