A political action committee is gearing up to blanket Philadelphia's 3rd Congressional District with text messages aimed at persuading voters to back independent candidate Dennis Mahoney over Democratic nominee Chris Rabb this November. The texts, expected to land on Tuesday, are being organized by the Forward Party Victory Fund, which says it hopes to reach tens of thousands of voters across the heavily Democratic district.
The effort was first reported by NBC10 Philadelphia, which detailed the Victory Fund's plan to urge voters to pick Mahoney for Congress. The Victory Fund describes itself as an independent-expenditure affiliate of the Forward Party, which was started as an alternative to the two major parties and has backed candidates in races around the country. Craig Snyder, the Victory Fund's political director, said the messaging is meant for voters in the political middle and reflects growing interest in alternatives to the two-party system.
Rabb, a state representative and self-described democratic socialist from Northwest Philly, won the crowded Democratic primary in May to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Rabb secured the Democratic nomination.
What the Texts Reportedly Claim
According to facts drawn from the NBC10 report, the Victory Fund's messages claim that Rabb was chosen by a majority of white voters to represent a district where most residents are Black, and that he lost the Black vote to primary rival Sharif Street. A video tied to the messaging reportedly features a speaker saying, “I am a Democrat, not a socialist,” a jab at Rabb's self-identification as a democratic socialist.
Snyder said the campaign believes its claims are truthful, and he pointed to precinct vote margins and the racial composition of those precincts as the basis for the messaging. Those figures track with the Inquirer's own primary analysis, which found Rabb won 60% of the vote in majority-white precincts compared with 28% in majority-Black precincts. The same analysis found Rabb carried 24 of the district's 37 wards, including eight majority-Black wards, while Street and Stanford also ran in the primary.
Rabb, for his part, has said his coalition reflects the diversity of Philadelphia's 3rd Congressional District and that no community's vote should be taken for granted. He has also said political actors should not try to divide neighbors along racial lines. Rabb's primary run was also boosted late by more than $1.5 million in advertising and organizational support from a national left-leaning coalition, per the Inquirer's reporting on how he assembled his winning coalition.
Mahoney's Path From Aid Worker to Ballot Line
Mahoney is a humanitarian who lives in South Philadelphia and has worked for a relief organization that operated in 18 countries. He qualified for the general election ballot by submitting roughly 19,000 signatures, and the Forward Party has endorsed his candidacy.
Mahoney has said he first learned about the planned text messages from NBC10, and that his own campaign is focused on bringing people together, servant leadership, ending division, and advocating for Philadelphians. His platform centers on poverty, affordable housing, and education, according to the same Inquirer profile. No Republican filed to run in the district, per Impacto Media, leaving Mahoney as the lone challenger to Rabb on the ballot.
Money and the Independent Bid
The financial gap between the two campaigns is stark. Mahoney reported roughly $8,200 cash on hand in his most recent campaign finance filing, while Rabb had slightly more than $21,000 left after raising and spending more than $1.3 million during his primary campaign, the Inquirer's reporting shows. Snyder is the Victory Fund's political director.
Mahoney is running as an independent, and the Victory Fund is backing his candidacy.
Federal rules govern spending at the heart of this campaign. The Federal Election Commission defines an independent expenditure as spending on a communication that expressly advocates for or against a clearly identified candidate without coordination with that candidate's campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission. Snyder declined to disclose how much the text campaign is costing.
