From the WP:

This historic city has long fueled Democratic victories in Pennsylvania, helping candidates for president, governor and U.S. Senate run up huge margins to offset Republican advantages across most of the state.

But more recently, the once strong election engagement by Philadelphia’s voters has been waning. In the 2022 midterms, when turnout rose statewide, just 43 percent of voters in the city cast ballots, down from 49 percent in 2018. And on May 16, when the city had a high-stakes mayoral primary that drew record spending, just 32 percent of Philadelphia’s nearly 800,000 registered Democrats turned out, according to the Philadelphia City Commissioners.

“I’m not feeling good. I thought the competitiveness would increase turnout,” Bob Brady, a former congressman and longtime chairman of the city’s Democratic Party, said as he sat in his front office around noon on the day of last month’s primary, his cellphone to his ear, a half-eaten hoagie on the table. “We do everything we can — the apathy is just there.”…

Rendell, who was the city’s mayor from 1992 to 2000, said Philadelphia’s Democratic Party is not alone in struggling to adapt to demographic and cultural changes in urban areas.

“No city committee, in any city, is as effective as it used to be,” Rendell said in an interview. “In the old days, people depended on their city committeeperson to get a streetlight fixed or help with a traffic ticket. … None of that exists anymore.”