{"id":138578,"date":"2026-05-28T01:46:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=138578"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:47:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:47:40","slug":"the-division-in-cd-3-was-not-based-on-race-but-on-income-and-education-and-the-future-for-progressives-is-bright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=138578","title":{"rendered":"THE DIVISION IN CD 3 WAS NOT BASED ON RACE BUT ON INCOME AND EDUCATION–AND THE FUTURE FOR PROGRESSIVES IS BRIGHT."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Some folks, like Ian Griffiths who often misinterprets quantitative, are drawing the wrong conclusion from the Inquirers analysis of the CD 3 race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Inquirer data shows that Rabb came in last in majority Black divisions and came in first in majority white divisions. That simply DOES NOT MEAN that he came in last with Black voters and first with white voters. One simply cannot make that assumption based on this data.<\/p>\n

Why not? For the simple reason that there are very few divisions that are just made up of Black people or white people. Most divisions have a mixture. And there are differences between divisions that have nothing to do with race.<\/p>\n

That leads to a few complications.<\/p>\n

1. There are many majority white divisions in which 20-40% of the voters are Black. That’s true in the majority white divisions of Mt. Airy and Germantown and Center City. Similarly there are majority Black divisions that have a substantial minority of white voters in, for example, East Mt. Airy in the 22nd ward, Germantown, eg the 59th and 12 wards., and West Philly, eg the 46th and 27th ward and part of the 52nd and 34th wards.<\/p>\n

Given that Chris Rabb did overwhelmingly well in both the majority white divisions where there are substantial numbers of Black voters as well as majority Black division in the NW, he likely had a lot of support from Black voters that is invisible if you just compare majority white divisions to majority Black divisions.<\/p>\n

2. In addition, there were far more voters in the divisions where Chris won than in those where he lost. My majority white division, in which Chris got 75% of the vote, had 452 voters. My division is 25% Black and many of the Black voters told me they were voting for Chris and I know a number of white voters who supported Sharif. So Chris probably won at least 50-60 Black voters there. Compare that to ward 34, division 37 which is about 85% Black. Sharif won 44% of the vote there. But that was only 64 votes. So even if you assume that all of those Street voters were Black, Chris won about the same number of Black votes in my division as Sharif won in 34-37. And Chris was winning 50-60% of the vote the East Mt. Airy divisions that are 80% Black and which turnout was higher than in West Philadelphia. Again, Chris’s support from Black voters is greater than it looks when you just compare majority Black and majority white divisions.<\/p>\n

3. This was a three way race. Even if the Black majority divisions which Sharif won, he generally only won 50-55%. The rest of the vote was split between Stanford and Rabb, with Stanford willing about 30-35% and Rabb winning 20-25%.<\/p>\n

What would have happened if it were a 2 way race. A number of election analyses assume that if Stanford had not been the race, Street would have won all her vote. But that is very dubious for three reasons.<\/p>\n

–It is pretty clear that the later people decided the worse Stanford did and the better Rabb did. The mail ballots had Stanford in first place and Rabb in 3rd. By the end they had reversed. That suggests that as Stanford lost support, Rabb gained it.<\/p>\n

–The reason for this dynamic is pretty easy to understand. Rabb and Stanford were competing for the anti-democratic organization votes. They had very little support from the organization even though Dwight Evans supported her. Dwight’s own ward, the 10th supported her as did some divisions in next door in the 50th ward, but she did not do well in any other area where the democratic organization is strong.<\/p>\n

–If you look at the areas where Stanford won, she tended to do better in middle class white and Black divisions such as part of Chestnut Hill, Parkside, Overbrook and West Oak lane.<\/p>\n

So in a two way race, not only would Rabb have certainly won a majority, his share of of Black voters vote would have been higher than it was..<\/p>\n

So while Street probably received more Black votes than Rabb, I don’t think the difference is as great as suggested by the Inquirer analysis. And in a 2 way race, my guess is that Rabb might have won more Black votes than Street.<\/p>\n

This electorate was largely not divided by race. Rather it was divided by income and education. Street did better in lower-income Black divisions but not necessarily in moderate and higher-income Black areas? (I suspect he did better in low income white divisions as well but I haven’t checked this.)<\/p>\n

Why? Largely because people tend to be more moderate in lower-income and less educated Black (and probably white) divisions and because they are far more likely to be influenced by their committee people.<\/p>\n

I never take credit for my division being overwhelmingly progressive and for over 65% of my constituent voting for Rabb. Most of my division is well-educated and upper middle class. In high profile races I have very little influence. I can help a judge or a city council at large candidate win votes as I’ve done with a few candidates. But in a race like this one, most of my constituents, both Black and white, like know who they are voting for long before they get to the polls.<\/p>\n

That’s far less true in Black and white low-income, low-education division where people generally don’t have the time and inclination to pay close attention to elections. They are solid Democratic voters and are more likely to be influenced by committee people handing them an “official Democratic ballot.”<\/p>\n

Does this mean that Rabb doesn’t not represent the views of low-income Black and white voters. Well, yes and no. He is less likely that Street and Stanford to represent their view on social \/ cultural issues. But he definitely represents their views and their interests on economic issues. Indeed precisely because he is so progressive he is far more likely to do so. Whether voters in these area recognize it now, they are going to have a real economic champion supporting them in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

More importantly Rabb’s victory and that of Brooks and O’Rourke and Gauthier shows us that progressive candidate can create broad multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and to some extent, cross-coalitions that can challenge the Democratic establishment.<\/p>\n

The breakthrough in working class Black and white communities was not as deep as we might have liked, but Rabb did win about 20% in those divisions and Rabb \/ Stanford won about 40%. So the progressive movement is poised to win even more in the future, particularly if, as I pointed out recently, it can organize itself in way that does not step on its own feet, and also be effective once in office.<\/p>\n

For reasons I’ll discuss another time, Pittsburgh has been well ahead of Philadelphia in building progressive power with the victories of Peduto, Gainey, and Innamorato (and despite Gainey’ loss in his fight for reelection.)<\/p>\n

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Philadelphia, however, is catching up. And that is really good to see.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some folks, like Ian Griffiths who often misinterprets quantitative, are drawing the wrong conclusion from the Inquirers analysis of the CD 3 race. The Inquirer data shows that Rabb came in last in majority Black divisions and came in first in majority white divisions. That simply DOES NOT MEAN that he came in last with Black voters and first with white voters. One simply cannot make that assumption based on this data. Why not? For the simple reason that there are very few divisions that are just made up of Black people or white people. Most divisions have a mixture. And there are differences between divisions that have nothing to do with race. That leads to a few complications. 1. There are many majority white divisions in which 20-40% of the voters are Black. That’s true in the majority white divisions of Mt. Airy and Germantown and Center City. Similarly\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":135889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308,153,57,15,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-congressional-election","category-elections","category-philadelphia","category-politics","category-ward-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Chris-Rabb-1-e1778519308721.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138580,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138578\/revisions\/138580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/135889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}