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The inside story of how Trump united a city of activists to elect the most progressive district attorney in a generation

Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner won the election for Philadelphia DA in a resounding victory Tuesday, but it was activists and organizers who put him there.

  • Civil-rights attorney Larry Krasner won the race for Philadelphia's district attorney on in a blowout.
  • Krasner's big victory can be traced to massive canvassing and get-out-the-vote operations by local activists and organizers.
  • Many of Philadelphia's progressive organizations formed a coalition after the election of President Donald Trump to maximize their impact on local politics.

By the time Larry Krasner entered the William Way LGBT Center in Philadelphia Tuesday night, his victory party had already become something like a family reunion.

The ballroom was packed, sweaty with supporters. Dotted around the room were the local activists who led canvassing efforts that helped drive the civil-rights attorney to a landslide victory in the Philadelphia district attorney’s race.

"This is not another story about kings and queens. This is a story about a movement," Krasner told the ecstatic crowd. "This is what a movement looks like."

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Talking with activists in the city, there is a clear sense that his victory is theirs. And the path to that victory began with the election of President Donald Trump last November.

‘I can’t sit on the sidelines anymore.'

Like it was for most liberal cities in America, the day after last year’s presidential election was dispiriting in Philadelphia.

Rick Krajewski, a software developer, woke up every day with a sense of dread.

Philadelphia's activists and organizers create 'a united front'

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Service Employees International Union and UNITE HERE! efforts to unionize airport workers and raise their wages in 2011. And Holston and his fellow pastors had worked with more than a dozen groups, including the teachers’ union, the Media Mobilizing Project, and 215 People's Alliance, on a long-running campaign to raise school funding and retake control of the city’s school system. (It has been under state control since 2001.)

who helped found 215PA and was at the meeting. "We're representing the same kind of folks and we need to build together."

the Martin Luther King DARE Table, named after a landmark 2015 post-Ferguson march led by POWER that many consider "the birth of the city’s modern justice movement."

"If the president wants to take credit for a victory, he can take take credit for bringing all of us together,"Mark Tyler, a pastor at Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel AME Church and a founding member of POWER, told Business Insider.

A surprise turned an “accountability campaign” into a wide-open race

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Making Krasner a viable candidate took a massive canvassing operation

"Do you feel safe in your neighborhood? Has anyone in your family suffered from opioid addiction?"

Reclaim and 215PA were far from the only ones in the field

ACLU Pennsylvania launched a “Smart Justice” campaign in the final month of the primary, sending formerly incarcerated individuals to canvass 10,000 of its members about issues in the campaign important to them, like cash bail reform and mandatory minimum sentences.

The Working Families Party ran its own independent canvassing operation, talking to 21,000 voters in the spring.

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POWER's Action Program, through a national affiliate, launched a phone-banking effort to talk to “low-frequency” African American voters about why the race was so important; they reached more than 16,000 people.

"Voters are not apathetic or low frequency," said Holston. "They are only that way because we fail to make the link between why your vote makes a difference and the vote that’s being voted over."

A debate in April showed how much the DA's race had changed

By mid-April, Krasner was neck-and-neck with Khan, the establishment frontrunner, and steadily gaining ground as canvassing efforts ramped up.

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The new tenor of the race became apparent at the forum, which was organized by the Coalition for a Just DA. More than 500 people filled the Arch Street United Methodist Church, a landmark center of activism in the city, to hear what the candidates had to say. Only one Democratic candidate didn’t attend.

Clarise McCants, who helped organize the forum and has worked on numerous DA races as COC's criminal justice campaign director, said the energy was something she "hadn’t seen before."

Residents who had been directly affected by DA policies showed up and asked questions. A man held in jail for a year because he could not post bail asked about cash bail reform. A Hispanic woman asked candidates how they would've handled a situation involving her mentally ill son who was detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

The forum ended with a series of yes-or-no questions on specific policies. Many in the city say that was the moment it became apparent who would commit to the reforms progressives wanted and who wouldn’t.

"You could see the looks on their faces like, 'I have to get this right,'" said McCants. "That was exciting. They felt accountable to us."

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Then came the air support.

The 'Soros money' takes the race from close to a 'blowout'

As early as December, there had been rumors that a PAC associated with billionaire financier George Soros would be throwing its considerable weight behind a DA candidate.

But when the PAC’s chosen candidate, Public Defender Association chief Keir Bradford-Grey, declined to run very publicly in January, it was unclear whether the PAC would enter the race. Despite constant rumors that Krasner was their second choice,

Krasner wins a decisive victory — twice

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Philadelphia's progressive community isn't done organizing

Abraham Gutman, a progressive researcher and writer in Philadelphia, published an op-ed Friday with the title, "I was Krasner’s biggest supporter, and I can’t wait to protest his office."

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