Last week The Hill ran a story about a Philly resident who won a neighborhood Board of Elections seat this year with one write-in vote from himself. This got a lot of national traction, which seemed weird to many of us who follow Philly politics since it's such a common occurrence. In a follow-up post on this, Dave Davies reported that 71 people won Board of Elections seats this way in 2017.

The big question coming out of the 2017 municipal primaries is whether the results, which were a total black eye for the traditional Democratic Party machine, should be seen as a one-time fluke, or whether they're part of an ongoing trend that spells trouble for other incumbents in the 2018 and 2019 election cycles.

(Congressman Bob Brady | Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer)

This week former Governor Ed Rendell gave Democratic City Committee chairman Bob Brady some unsolicited advice about cleaning up the city's party organization via an article at City & State--advice that didn't go over so well. 

(Photo: David Swanson, Philadelphia Inquirer)

Earlier this week, 36th ward committeepeople voted in 2nd District Councilman Kenyatta Johnson as the new 36th ward leader, replacing Harold James, who said he was stepping down due to health problems. 

If you're thinking about running for a ward seat for the first time in 2018, one question you may be asking is "how much influence do wards really have over who wins elections?"

Over the past two weeks, Philadelphia 3.0 hosted two sold-out 'Get Mad, Then Get Elected' workshops that helped prepare nearly 200 Philadelphians from over half the citys wards to run for their first political office next year in the 2018 ward elections. 

Our campaign to recruit people to run for ward elections in 2018 has been picking up steam for the last month, and local media is taking notice. We sold out both of our January workshops, which will train 200 people on the nuts and bolts of winning ward elections, some of the neighborhood teams we've helped organize are already starting to meet already, and sign-ups continue to roll in through our web form. 

The election of Donald Trump has been a huge boon for interest in local politics in Philadelphia, and we're seeing that firsthand. Over 300 people have signed up to run for local ward committee seats on our page, and we sold out all 100 tickets for our workshop on winning local ward elections in just two days. (We've since set up a second workshop to accommodate all the interest.) Philadelphia 3.0 Executive Director Ali Perelman talked with Liz Spikol at the Jewish Exponent about what she thinks is happening: 

The 2016 Election results have stirred up a lot of restless political energy in Philadelphia, and we've been encouraging people to put that to positive use by signing up to run for local ward committee seats. 

(Philadelphia division map)

There's a lot of grief and anger here in Philadelphia in response to the outcome of Tuesday's election, with many of the city's voters (and not just Democrats) feeling like they've been stripped of their power and agency in national politics. That's a perfectly natural response to losing an election, and people should take the time they need to cope. But in the days ahead, we have to channel that frustration into building Philadelphia's political power back.