“To hell with them.”

That’s what Philadelphia Democratic Party chairman Bob Brady had to say about Kendra Brooks, Nicolas O’Rourke, and their bid to break the Republican Party’s grip on Philadelphia’s city council. Brooks and O’Rourke are running on the Working Families Party (WFP) ballot line for the council’s two “minority party seats,” which, by law, Democrats cannot hold. Yet Brady is conducting a scorched-earth campaign against WFP and effectively in support of their Republican opponents.

In an upset that shocked the city and dismayed both the Democratic and Republican establishments, Brooks captured the first minority party seat in 2019 (O’Rourke also ran that year, but came up just short). Since then, Brooks, a socialist organizer and former nursing assistant, has consistently advocated for pro-working-class policies like rent control and fully funding public schools. She led the council to unanimously pass emergency support for renters during the depths of the pandemic. And even when she could not move her colleagues to her position — like when she was the sole vote against the council’s ban on overdose prevention sites — she was willing to take lonely stands.