After his victory in last Tuesday’s Democratic Primary, it appears that incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner will win a third term. But a Republican write-in campaign may give Judge Patrick Dugan, Krasner’s opponent, something to think about.
Democratic Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner arrives to speak during a primary election night event in Philadelphia, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
By Denise Clay-Murray
In what wasn’t a surprise to many, incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner won the Democratic primary.
But because the Republicans chose to run no one, and instead decided to do something that almost never works, we may not have heard the last of Krasner’s opponent, former head administrative Municipal Court Judge Patrick Dugan.
In a campaign in which Dugan outspent Krasner due to financial assistance from the Philadelphia Building Trades and Construction Trades Council and an anti-Krasner SuperPAC, the people spoke, Krasner said.
And what they said was that they weren’t for sale.
“This has been a people’s campaign,” Krasner said to supporters at an election night party at the Pipeline Philly co-working space near City Hall.
“You cannot just buy elections.”
The race was contentious from the start in a variety of ways. In addition to splitting the unions — leaders from Laborers Local 332 District Council 33 were front and center at the Krasner victory party — Dugan and Krasner took shots at each other regarding everything from the function of the office to whether or not the statistics showing that crime has gone down was a function of Krasner’s work or a fear that has led to underreporting.
Surprisingly, the Fraternal Order of Police didn’t make an endorsement, and sources say that neither campaign came to the FOP to request one.
In a statement released after the race was called, Dugan, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, congratulated his opponent and promised to keep fighting.
“Although we came up short on Election Day, I’m proud of what we accomplished, and while I may not be the next district attorney, I will never stop fighting for the values we carried through this campaign,” he said. “And to Larry Krasner, I offer my congratulations. For the sake of our neighborhoods, our families, and the soul of this city — I truly hope he succeeds.”
That fight might happen sooner than you think. Philadelphia’s Republican Party, which didn’t field a candidate of its own, mounted a write-in candidate on Dugan’s behalf. About 6,000 people joined in the write-in candidacy, but Dugan has publicly said that as a lifelong Democrat, he wasn’t interested in taking that road to the District Attorney’s office. But Republicans are hoping that if he meets the 1,000 vote threshold to be placed on the ballot as the party’s standard bearer, Dugan will change his mind.
Should Krasner win in November’s general election, he would become the first District Attorney since Lynne Abraham to serve three terms in the office.
In the Controller’s race, Democratic incumbent Christy Brady and Republican Ari Patrinos won the right to face off in November because neither had an opponent in their primaries.
Statistically, incumbents tend to do better in elections when turnout is light. In the case of this primary, light would be an understatement. Only 16.46% of Philadelphia’s 1,062,864 voters came out to the polls on Tuesday despite it being a warm, sunny day.
In addition to the races for District Attorney and Controller, there were three ballot questions put forth by members of Philadelphia City Council that were approved last Tuesday.
Ballot Question #1, which was proposed by Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, creates a new ombudsman’s office for the Office of Homeless Services. This ombudsman would report directly to the Office of Inspector General and would make sure that the city’s unhoused have an advocate, Gilmore Richardson said.
“This will ensure that we have an ombudsperson who would be principally responsible for serving as a client advocate, for investigating grievances and ensuring that unhoused residents across the city of Philadelphia have the opportunity to have their voices heard within government,” she said.
The new ombudsman will also help the city’s homeless get fair access to resources, improve the quality of life in the city’s shelter system, investigate complaints from those who access services and provide oversight and recommendations to the city’s homeless service providers, Gilmore Richardson said.
Ballot question #2, which also passed last Tuesday, would require the city to provide more dedicated resources to the Housing Trust Fund. Proposed by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, the ballot question would require the density bonuses that developers pay into the fund to go directly to the trust fund instead of being passed through the general fund.
Having the money directly deposited into the fund will go a long way toward helping the city’s affordable housing problem, Gauthier said.
“Just to give you a sense of scale, we’ve missed out on $36 million over the past four years that could have gone to the trust fund but instead went to the city’s general fund,” she said. “This is righting an injustice, because a lot of times, these communities are only voting yes on these proposals because they think there’s going to be a payment coming in that supports affordable housing in their communities, and it is not understood that those payments were just going to the city’s general fund. This would require the city to make that deposit into the fund.”
Ballot question #3 creates an Office of Prison Oversight and an independent Philadelphia Prison Community Oversight Board. The ballot question, which was proposed by Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, changes the City Charter to allow City Council to create an office that would govern the City’s prisons, something currently done by the Board of Trustees of Philadelphia’s Prisons. An independent Philadelphia Prison Community Oversight Board will also be created.
In 2020, Philadelphians approved the creation of the Citizens Police Advisory Committee (CPOC) to oversee and investigate complaints citizens have filed against the Philadelphia Police. Since that time, the committee has been better known for internal conflicts, resignations, and Fraternal Order of Police roadblocks than it has been for anything else.
While there may be difficulties with the Community Oversight Board with the prisons, Thomas believes that the lessons learned from CPOC’s rollout will be useful.’
“We’ve tried our best to learn from that process, because that was a very unique process for the city,” he said. “So, we appreciate Councilman (Curtis) Jones, his team, and everything that they did. [CPOC] is still a work in progress, just like this is on our end.”
The talk now turns to the November elections, which will be on Nov. 4. The last day to register to vote for the November elections is Oct. 20.
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