Ryan Boyer, State Rep. Jordan Harris, Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton, and Gov, Josh Shapiro attended a luncheon for Philly Democrats Nov. 5, 2025 (Capital-Star photo by John Cole)
PHILADELPHIA— Philadelphia Democrats gathered Tuesday at South on N. Broad Street for lunch. Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, who also serves as the 50th Ward Leader for the Democratic Party, said she was “super excited” about the turnout she was seeing in the city.
“So if Philly turns out, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montco turns out, we will win this election,” Parker said to reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Parker said she was asked what numbers she’s hoping for in the election for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m between 650 (650,000), and seven (700,000),” Parker said.
In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden received 603,000 votes in Philadelphia, the highest total in all of the state’s 67 counties.
“You’ve got to feel it. It’s palpable energy,” Parker added, “Can’t create it. It comes from the ground up.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he likes Harris’ chances
“I said this in the final days. I’d rather be us than them,” Shapiro said. “I think Kamala Harris closed really strong. I think our field effort was really unmatched, I think over the last decade.”
“And what we’re seeing is just sort of anecdotal right now, but kind of extra high turnout in the early part of the day, particularly here in Philly. So I feel really good,” he added. “I’m not trying not to read too much into what you see, you know, anecdotally, in different snapshots and communities. But I feel good.”
However, when asked if higher voter turnout benefits one party over the other, Shapiro said “we’ll see.”
Shapiro also told reporters he believes election results should be returned faster due to better technology, more equipment, more practice, a change in state law that requires counties to keep counting and not stop, and fewer mail-in ballots in comparison to the 2020 presidential election.
“I think all that together should speed up the count,” he said.
State Sen. Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia), who serves as the chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, believes Harris will surpass the vote total and margin of victory in Philadelphia in comparison to the previous presidential election.
Street also discussed the areas of the state he thinks will play a big role in determining the winner of the statewide races.
“I think the Lehigh Valley is always important. You want to look to see what’s happening in Lehigh and Northampton counties,” Street told reporters. “I think we want to look, Erie has historically been a bellwether county. Of course, turnout in Allegheny is almost as important as turnout in Philadelphia. And then our suburbs, and I believe Democratic vote in our suburbs is going to be off the chart, and it’s going to turn out big.”
Street also told reporters that he thinks their party will make gains in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
“I think we’ll retain control of the state House and we’re going to add seats to the State Senate,” Street said. “And it is not unthinkable that we could flip the Senate.”
“It’s not unthinkable, but… that’s going to be tough, but I think we definitely have more seats with the Senate tomorrow than we do today,” he added.
Street told reporters that state Rep. Patty Kim (D-Dauphin) is going to win the state Senate seat in Dauphin County and thinks Democratic challengers Nicole Ruscitto and Jim Wertz will also have a chance to win their races.
State Rep. Danilo Burgos (D-Philadelphia) is the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Latino Caucus. He told the Capital-Star on Tuesday that he thinks Latino areas of the city have been motivated “by the racist comments” a comedian made at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27.
“The very next day, first thing in the morning, people started to ask for posters. People started to ask, How can we help? And …it’s wonderful that we’ve been able to wake up a sleeping giant in the Latino community, especially in the Puerto Rican community,” Burgos said.
“That hate rally in Madison Square Garden where speaker after speaker after speaker was talking bad about Americans, was talking bad about Latinos, and then the joke was the drop that overfilled the cup,” he added.
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Philadelphia) said Northeast Philadelphia will play a role in the election.
“If Northeast Philadelphia were its own city, it would be the second biggest city in the state, and it is a very competitive area,” Boyle told the Capital-Star.
Boyle said he’s proud of the fact that he overperforms the top of the Democratic ticket in his district, which he believes shows there are a lot of swing voters in that region of the city and in Bucks County, which neighbors Northeast Philadelphia.
“I wouldn’t have gotten elected first the state legislature and then the Congress without door to door campaigning. I think retail still matters there, relationships still matter,” Boyle said. “And I expect Northeast Philadelphia to continue to be, as it has been for many decades, a very competitive place electorally.”
And, since this is the first presidential election since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Boyle added, working class women who are concerned about the cost of living and abortion rights are moving towards the Democratic Party.
“I’ll be curious when right at 8 o’clock, when you can start to get the first results out of the machines. There are a couple of precincts I’ll be watching very carefully,” Boyle said.
Northeast Philadelphia is also home to a significant union presence.
Ryan Boyer, business manager for the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council and Business Manager of the Laborers District Council, told reporters that he believes labor’s impact on the upcoming election is “phenomenal” and cited that amount of doors they’ve been knocking ahead of the election.
“We had over 400 laborers out every day, the carpenters, the Teamsters, the electricians, everybody that you ever want to think has knocked on doors. AFL-CIO, our brothers and sisters in the public service sectors,” Boyer told reporters.Harris has secured the bulk of the endorsements from unions, however, not all rank-and-file members will follow suit. When asked about that Boyer said “some of them will” vote for Trump.
“But we believe that if we talk to all of our rank-and-files, we’ll be in the low 80s, early 70s,” Boyer said. “And what we like our chance of every time we knock a door 7.5 out of 10 and come out. So we’re going to knock every door, and we’re trying to communicate to those that don’t to let them know that they’re voting against their own interests.”