PA-3 Dems battle each other in off-the-rails primary forum

Passions and tensions – chiefly over the Israel-Gaza conflict – ran high Monday night in a raucous West Philadelphia forum featuring the PA-3 Democratic candidates vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans.

Shortly after Dr. Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon and public health activist who is endorsed by Evans, made her opening statement before a packed crowd at Penn Alexander School, one of her rivals, the progressive state Rep. Chris Rabb, challenged the forum’s rules in dramatic fashion – and set a combative tone for the evening.

“There’s a number of things I’m not allowed to talk about,” Rabb told the audience in a theatrically conspiratorial tone, referring to guidelines set by Carol Jenkins, University City neighborhood’s longtime ward leader and the evening’s host, that attempted to restrict the discourse to a set list of topics. “So I’m not going to be talking about the genocide in Gaza. I’m not gonna be talking about my support for adult-use cannabis … Because that would make me a troublemaker in troubled times, and I know you guys don’t want a troublemaker.

“The ward system has worked so well for the city, where four out of five Democrats stayed home four years ago in the last congressional race,” added the four-term representative, who this week received the endorsement of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board.

Over the next two hours, Rabb, Stanford and state Sen. Sharif Street, the former chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and the candidate championed by Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker – sparred in ways that revealed their very different styles and approaches to politics, even as many of their positions on issues, from immigration enforcement and the federal administration to regulating AI, showed similarities.

The stakes are higher than average for a primary: The nation’s most partisan district is so solidly blue – about 40 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole in recent elections – that whoever wins the Democratic contest is virtually assured a congressional seat representing North and West Philadelphia. And with each of the three remaining candidates boasting prominent endorsements and strong constituencies, polls show a tight contest.

Much of the exchange was a pointed back-and-forth between the progressive Rabb and the more moderate Stanford, with each using their biographies to emphasize values, while Street sought to direct the conversation toward his own legislative achievements.

Stanford, a first-time candidate who founded the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium and was appointed by then-President Joe Biden to lead regional public health efforts, repeatedly returned to her own lived experience. “There’s not a room that I go into that I don’t feel comfortable and (have) some connection, because I have lived on both sides,” said the physician, who grew up in Philadelphia’s projects and has treated victims of the gun violence that has long plagued the city.

“I’m the only candidate that needed welfare … and I’m the only one who needed every federal program that existed for my health care, for my food, for my housing and for my education,” she added, noting that she would prioritize federal funding for such programs.

For his part, the softer-spoken Street was in his element answering questions about legislation passed – he cited numerous examples of bills he’d championed, from healthcare to violence prevention – and how candidates would support fellow Democrats in the general election campaign.

To the latter question, Street showed his fluency in state politics, rattling off the key races where Democrats hope to flip seats – and, by extension, Congress – blue. “Two hours after the election – either way, win or lose – I’ll be on the road, and I understand what we need to do,” he said.

Over and over, and despite Jenkins’ gentle but unpopular efforts to stay on-topic, the conversation came back to Gaza.

“What about the genocide? Can you say the word genocide?” yelled one audience member, inspiring echoes as Stanford rose to answer a question about investigating federal officials.

“Why don’t you chill out?” shouted another person from across the room, as others groused, “Censorship!” But the Gaza issue resurfaced in multiple questions submitted by the audience, when Rabb drew cheers and hearty whoops for his assertion that “there’s an act of genocide in Gaza … There is universal acknowledgment about what’s going on.”

Stanford was repeatedly heckled for her more nuanced position, which she emphasized was rooted in her doctor’s non-political stance toward human suffering. “You’re not going to hear me stand up and scream to get a response,” she said pointedly. Noting that both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered grievous losses, she went on: “There should be justice for both of them … No one is ever going to make me say that one life is more valuable than another.” That line drew boos.

There was more agreement over the need for fresh energy in both the Philadelphia seat and in Congress itself.

“It’s time for some new ideas and some new creativity,” said Stanford, emphasizing her outsider status: “People owe people favors when they’re in office that long … I am not part of that. I owe no one anything except the people in this room.”

Rabb insisted that recent electoral energy has tilted in favor of progressive candidates like himself, and – in a wide-ranging discourse that called for reparations and referenced Paul Robeson and what he called a 1950s genocide of African Americans – defiantly announced his willingness to buck party orthodoxy: “I’m going to fight for you. I don't care what the Democratic Party says. I’m not running for the Democratic Party. I'm running for the people.”

Street, the most politically established of the three, argued that his own legislative achievements are among his strongest credentials. “Yes, we have shared values,” he said of the Democratic candidates. “What I’m offering … is a person that has actually delivered progressive results in the legislature … (Rabb) has suggested some of the boldest ideas around healthcare, yes, but I introduced the legislation that got the implementation of Pennsylvania's Obamacare. We agree on a lot of things around cannabis, but I was the one that was able to actually get a four-party framework done.

“Are you going to elect a person who has the best speeches?” he asked the crowd rhetorically. “Do you want someone who is merely inspirational? Or do you want the person that would go to Washington to do the hard work?”