Philadelphia, PA Mayor: Former City Council member Derek Green said Thursday he was suspending his campaign to win the May 16 Democratic nomination, a move that came days after former colleague Maria Quiñones Sánchez made the same announcement. Green, like Quiñones Sánchez, noted that most of his main intra-party foes have vastly more money than him, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer he’d decided to leave after “realizing how we get to the end of this race and the dollars that are necessary to do what we need to do.”
Grocer Jeff Brown also earned the backing of the city’s police union on Thursday, an endorsement that comes after a tough few days for him. A judge on Monday issued a temporary order banning Brown’s super PAC allies from spending more money on his behalf, a move that came after the Philadelphia Board of Ethics filed a lawsuit claiming that Brown and the group had improperly coordinated. The candidate called the allegations a “political hit job” at the following day’s debate, but it was his answer about whether Philadelphia should keep sending much of its trash for disposal in the predominantly Black city of Chester that drew considerably more attention.
When moderator Shiba Russell asked Brown if he’d continue this practice despite “accusations of pollution and environmental racism,” he responded that, while he’d need to think about it, “Chester is Chester. I’m worried about Philadelphians and how their lives are.” When Russell followed up by asking, “So you don’t care about Chester?” Brown declared, “I do care, but I don’t work for them if I’m the mayor. I work for Philadelphia, and the trash has to go somewhere, and whoever gets it is going to be unhappy with it.”
Former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart and former Council members Cherelle Parker and Helen Gym immediately slammed their opponent’s answer. Parker, who is Black, declared his “response is the same way you treat the Black and brown community,” and she later said at the debate she’d work with local leaders to address public health “including my good friend, Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland of Chester.” Brown’s spokesperson said the next day, “To suggest that his focus on serving Philadelphians over residents of another municipality is somehow racist is a lie and the kind of distortion we’ve come to expect from some of the other candidates.”
The Inquirer’s Anna Orso also writes that, while Brown’s side has been one of the top TV spenders for most of the campaign, that’s changed during the last two weeks. Orso says that Brown has deployed less than $100,000 a week, putting him behind self-funder Allan Domb as well as Gym and Rhynhart.