Following the election of a liberal county commissioner, Brandon Johnson, as mayor of Chicago, liberal activists and teachers unions are energized and turning their attention to the City of Brotherly Love, where they are hoping for another big win for the left-wing flank of the Democratic Party. 

The dynamics of the races at Chicago and Philadelphia are strikingly similar: a pro-police moderate leading the pack with an insurgent liberal close behind and gaining steam thanks, in part, to the largesse of the powerful teachers union.

Two of the leading Philadelphia candidates — Jeff Brown and Helen Gym — come from very different backgrounds: Mr. Brown is a pro-police outsider and businessman, and Ms. Gym is a teacher and civil rights activist-turned-city councilor. The dynamics of their contest are strikingly similar to that of the ideological contest in the Windy City. 

Like Chicago, crime is a major issue in the Philadelphia race. According to a Fox poll, 64 percent of Philadelphia residents have heard gunshots in their neighborhood in the last year. One report shows that parts of Philadelphia are more dangerous for young Black men than Afghanistan and Iraq were for American soldiers during the wars in those countries. 

Mr. Brown currently leads the pack with 24 percent, according to a poll from March. He has made retaining and hiring officers a key pillar of his campaign, and often bashes members of the city council — like Ms. Gym — who voted to cut the police budget in 2020. 

At a recent debate, Mr. Brown called out those city councilors. “The first thing I wouldn’t have done is defund the police like all of the council people on this stage tonight,” he said. Those who advocate for reduced police budgets have “let the ranks dwindle” so that there is “no visible police presence on the streets.”

When asked at the debate how she would solve Philadelphia’s skyrocketing crime rates, Ms. Gym proposed hiring more detectives to solve violent crimes. She also called for “non-police” mental health task forces to intervene with people in the midst of mental episodes instead of deploying beat cops in such cases. 

While serving on the city council, Ms. Gym argued that youth violence could be solved by investing in libraries and advocated for decriminalizing traffic violations. 

Paul Vallas, who narrowly lost the Chicago mayor’s race to Mr. Johnson, ran a similar campaign to that of Mr. Brown. Mr. Vallas seized on Mr. Johnson’s comments calling for defunding the police and said he did not have the experience to manage a large budget. Mr. Vallas was previously the head of Chicago’s public schools. 

Philadelphia Republicans have already nominated their candidate, a former city councilor, David Oh, though given how deeply Democratic the city is, the real contest for mayor is the Democratic primary. No Republican has won more than 25 percent of the vote in a Philadelphia mayoral election since 2003. 

Ms. Gym is running the same kind of insurgent campaign that Mr. Johnson ran at Chicago, relying on young peoples’ frustrations about the cost of housing and police misconduct. Also, like her Chicago counterpart, Ms. Gym has received large campaign contributions from local and national teachers unions. 

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was quick to endorse her shortly after her campaign announcement. A former mayor, Michael Nutter, confronted Ms. Gym during a candidate forum in March over her stance on charter schools. 

While a private citizen, Ms. Gym, who is Asian, founded a charter school at Philadelphia’s Chinatown. Once she was elected to the city council, she opposed the establishment of all new charter schools, many of which would have been built in Black neighborhoods. 

Mr. Brown is the owner of a lucrative supermarket chain in the city, and though like Mr. Vallas has never held elected office, he is using residents’ fears about crime to boost himself. Between January and March, Mr. Brown saw his support among Black Philadelphians — those most affected by crime — increase to 36 percent from 26 percent. 

Ms. Gym is considered the leading liberal of the pack, having worked as a public educator, union organizer, and active critic of the Philadelphia police department. She has hired a number of alumni from other progressive campaigns, including some who worked on Senator Fetterman’s 2022 race. 

Ms. Gym has climbed to 15 percent in the polls after starting off at 5 percent. A former councilor, Allan Domb, has been level at 15 percent while a former city controller, Rebecca Rhynhart, has 12 percent support, with all other candidates at less than 10 percent.