Influential ward leaders, Council members to endorse Krasner for DA

A group of highly influential ward leaders and elected officials will endorse Larry Krasner for Philadelphia District Attorney on Monday evening, according to a source close to the Krasner campaign.

Among those ward leaders are former Philadelphia City Councilwoman Marian Tasco and state Rep. Isabella Fitzgerald, two members of the high-turnout, predominantly African American wards known as the Northwest Coalition.

It remains unclear, as Philadelphia Weekly reported in April, whether or not the entire coalition will split its support ward by ward or unify behind Krasner. But at least three wards – Tasco in the 50th, Fitzgerald in the 10th and Elaine Tomlin in the 42nd – will throw their weight behind Krasner for the May 16 primary election, according to the campaign source.

Those three wards alone could deliver a considerable number of votes. In the 2015 mayoral primary, they accounted for more than 9 percent of the city’s voter turnout. According to internal metrics used by political campaigns, Tasco’s ward is home to the highest percentage of the city’s “supervoters” – those who tend to vote in every election.

Hopes are tempered for a high voter turnout in the upcoming election.  The Democratic party has declined to endorse any of the seven candidates in the wide-open race for the city’s top prosecutor, leaving an unusual amount of power in the hands of the city’s 66 individual wards to back their own candidates. 

Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez and Councilwoman Cherelle Parker will also be endorsing Krasner, a longtime civil rights attorney, on Monday evening. Neither of those officials are ward leaders, but Parker is a Tasco protégé and prominent member of the Northwest Coalition.

The endorsements come just one week after a political action committee funded by billionaire George Soros agreed to put nearly $300,000 in advertising into the Krasner campaign.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Max Marin is a staff writer at Philadelphia Weekly, where this article first appeared.