Philadelphia Battlefields: Disruptive Campaigns and Upset Elections in a Changing City describes how reform candidates achieved spectacular successes in long-odds Philadelphia elections by promoting grassroots engagement in politics and by finding creative ways to exploit the weaknesses of an anemic Democratic party infrastructure.

Author John Kromer, who has participated in many Philadelphia political campaigns, details strategies that insurgent candidates used to mobilize supporters from key constituencies and suggests ways that an understanding of their accomplishments could guide future strategies for improving governance and policymaking.

Philadelphia Battlefields draws on election statistics, data mapping, and in-person interviews to show how upstart political candidates succeeded at the polls and to describe the social and economic circumstances that influenced their successes.

The book includes chapters on:

• Newcomer Rebecca Rhynhart’s landslide victory over a veteran incumbent City Controller;

• Activist Chaka Fattah’s effective use of grassroots organizing skills to win a seat in Congress;

• Maria Quiñones-Sánchez’s hard-fought struggle to become the first Hispanic woman to win a City Council seat; and

• A detailed analysis of the May 2019 Democratic primary, with insights into the reasons why this election produced unexpected outcomes for party-endorsed incumbents as well as for the candidates who challenged them.

In a concluding chapter, Kromer argues that the most effective way to reinvigorate democracy in America is by helping a new generation of candidates win elections at the municipal and legislative-district level in cities and counties across the country. Philadelphia Battlefields explains how this goal was achieved in more than a dozen Philadelphia elections over the past half-century, during years in which it was widely believed that the city’s political establishment was unbeatable.