After a crowded primary, Cherelle Parker, a former state representative and City Council member who campaigned on hiring more police, won the Democratic nomination for Philadelphia mayor on Tuesday night, emerging decisively from a field of contenders who had vied to be seen as the rescuer of a struggling and disheartened city.
If she wins in November, which is all but assured in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than seven to one, Ms. Parker will become the city’s 100th mayor, and the first woman to hold the job.
Of the five mayoral hopefuls who led the polls in the final stretch, Ms. Parker, 50, was the only Black candidate, in a city that is over 40 percent Black. She drew support from prominent Democratic politicians and trade unions, and throughout the majority Black neighborhoods of north and west Philadelphia. Some compared her to Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, noting her willingness to buck the party’s progressives with pledges to hire hundreds of police officers and bring back what she has called constitutional stop-and-frisk.
But she said that many of her proposed solutions had roots in Philadelphia’s “middle neighborhoods” — working and middle-class areas that have been struggling in recent years to hold off decline.
“They know it’s not Cherelle engaging in what I call ‘I know what’s best for you people’ policymaking, but it’s come from the ground up,” Ms. Parker said on Tuesday morning at a polling place in her home base of northwest Philadelphia.
Solutions should come from the community, she said, “not people thinking they’re coming in to save poor people, people who never walked in their shoes or lived in a neighborhood with high rates of violence and poverty. I’ve lived that.”
Ms. Parker did not attend her own victory party on Tuesday. Her campaign told the Philadelphia Inquirer that she had emergency dental surgery last week, and issued a statement saying that she had required immediate medical attention at the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening for a “recent dental issue.”
Her Republican opponent in the November general election is David Oh, a former City Council member.
If Ms. Parker wins in November, she would be taking the reins of a city facing a host of problems, chief among them a surge in gun violence that has left hundreds dead year after year. Philadelphians routinely described crime as the city’s No. 1 problem, but the list of issues runs long, including crumbling school facilities, blighted housing stock, an opioid epidemic and a municipal staffing shortage.
The punishing list of challenges had exhausted the current mayor, Jim Kenney, a Democrat whose second term was consumed with Covid-19, citywide protests and a soaring murder rate, and who spoke openly of his eagerness to be done with the job.
The primary to replace Mr. Kenney was congested from the start and remained so into its final days. Up to the last polls, no front-runner had emerged and five of the candidates seemed to have a roughly equal shot at winning, each representing different constituencies and different parts of town.
The candidates at the finish line included Rebecca Rhynhart, a former city controller with a technocratic pitch who was endorsed by multiple past mayors; Helen Gym, a former councilwoman endorsed by Bernie Sanders and a range of other high-profile progressives; Alan Domb, who made millions in real estate and served two terms on the City Council; and Jeff Brown, a grocery store magnate and a newcomer to electoral politics.
The early days of the race were dominated by TV ads supporting Mr. Brown and Mr. Domb, but other campaigns soon joined the fray and in the final weeks the ad war grew increasingly combative. SuperPACs spent millions on behalf of various candidates and eventually became an issue themselves, when the Philadelphia Board of Ethics accused Mr. Brown, who led in early polls of the race, of illegally coordinating with a SuperPAC.
But for all the money and the negative campaigning, no candidate seemed to rise above the crowded field for Philadelphians who were busy with their daily lives.
“People have option fatigue,” said State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democrat, who on Tuesday was chatting with candidates and local politicos as they packed into a traditional Election Day lunch at South restaurant and jazz club.
In the last polls before the election, large numbers of voters remained undecided, but many of them seemed to break in the end for Ms. Parker, whose win was more substantial than many were expecting.
The victory of a moderate like Ms. Parker in Philadelphia stood in contrast to some races elsewhere around the state. In Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh lies, progressives racked up one primary win after another on Tuesday, with candidates from the left flank of the Democratic Party winning the nominations for a range of top offices, including county executive and district attorney.
Democrats also held onto their slim control of the Pennsylvania House on Tuesday, as Heather Boyd won a special election in southeast Delaware County. Top Democrats, including President Biden and Gov. Josh Shapiro, had made a push in the race, framing it as crucial to protecting reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.
In a separate special election, Republicans held a safe state House seat in north-central Pennsylvania when Michael Stender, a school board member and a firefighter, won his race.
Neil Vigdor, Mike Ives and Jon Hurdle contributed reporting.
