Philadelphia's Helen Gym is focused on her city. Progressives see a national star on the rise
CNN — Helen Gym does not want the story of her campaign for mayor of Philadelphia to be told as a referendum on the state of the national progressive movement.
But for many allies and supporters, in the city and across the country, that view has become increasingly welcome. Gym’s dynamism, decadeslong history of activism and more recent successes grinding through legislation as a city council member make the 55-year-old daughter of Korean immigrants an ideal candidate, they believe, to lead Philadelphia – and also to highlight the movement’s strategic reset and recent successes at the local level.
Victory for Gym in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, a field of a dozen now slimmed to nine, would put her on a path to becoming the city’s 100th mayor – and the first woman and Asian American to hold the office. It would also be an exclamation point for many on the left who, after so many recent disappointments, are currently on a remarkable streak of success at the local level.
Progressive champions have been elected to run some of the largest American cities, from Los Angeles and Boston, which elected Karen Bass and Michelle Wu, respectively, and, most recently, in Chicago, where former union organizer and relative political unknown Brandon Johnson’s election shocked the Windy City establishment. The left’s focus on local races is a departure for a movement, supercharged by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign and its national ambitions, that is now more uniformly focused on remaking the Democratic Party from the bottom up.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/14/politics/philadelphia-mayor-progressives-helen-gym
