In Philly, Turnout for Off-Year Election Reaches 20-Year High
Students hold signs at the PA Youth Vote "Give Us a Ballot" rally in downtown Philadelphia on October 28, 2025 (CREDIT: Dawud Brown)
By Jared Council
Off-year elections in Philadelphia tend to be relatively sleepy local contests, sometimes drawing less than a fifth of registered voters. In years when there’s no mayoral race on the ballot, like 2025, low turnout is all but baked in.
But in Tuesday's general election, something unprecedented happened. Turnout in Philadelphia reached at least a 20-year high as 35.4% of registered voters cast ballots in races for district attorney, city controller, and state and local judgeships.
This year’s turnout is higher than that of any recent Philly mayoral election, which tends to draw more voters than municipal elections. The 2025 turnout figure could still grow as the results aren’t official yet.
"We’re really pleased to see the level of voter participation we saw this week,” said Andrew McGinley, vice president of external affairs at Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based, nonpartisan civic advocacy organization. “Honestly, it surpassed our expectations.”
Municipal elections that follow a presidential election, like the ones this year, tend to draw the least number of voters, with turnout percentages often in the teens.
In 2009, the year after Barack Obama was elected president, municipal elections in Philadelphia turned out a mere 12.5% of registered voters, according to data from the Philadelphia Office of the City Commissioners. For the next one, in 2013, turnout dropped to 11.6%.
But over the past three cycles for municipal elections in 2017, 2021, and now 2025, these election contests have all seen turnout exceed 20%. That's nothing to exactly write home about, but it is still nearly double what it had been.
Who knows if future off-year elections will keep up this pace. While the government shutdown or anti-Trump sentiment may have encouraged voters to head to the polls this year, there appears to be a broader trend of growing voter participation in Philadelphia.
Philly voter turnout in both mayoral elections and municipal elections has been steadily growing since about 2011 and 2013, respectively.
The Every Voice, Every Vote coalition was designed to provide reliable civic information for Philadelphians year-round. In 2025, media and community partners covered the elections through articles, election guides, voting reminders, candidate forums, and issue explainers.
After Tuesday’s high turnout numbers, Every Voice, Every Vote partners who focus on voter participation say they’re pleased with the results — but the work is not done.
Andrew McGinley, Vice President of External Affairs, Committee of Seventy:
"We’re really pleased to see the level of voter participation we saw this week. Honestly, it surpassed our expectations. Voters understood the stakes of these races and took action. Too many elections have become too quiet in Philadelphia, and I think the low turnout in this year’s primary election was a wakeup call for leaders across the region.
“Voter education is incredibly important — especially in low information races such as judicial retention races. We, along with partners across the Commonwealth, worked hard to connect the dots for voters and explain how these systems work and impact their day-to-day lives. We saw a high level of interest in our programming, and I think that helped voters feel informed and confident about making decisions in these races.
“One election isn’t a trend, but we hope that we continue to see increased engagement in non-presidential elections as voters build healthy participation habits and become more engaged with and informed about their governments."
Angelique Hinton, Executive Director, PA Youth Vote:
"It's an improvement so that is great news... However, we still have lots of work to do. I believe that coalitions like Every Voice, Every Vote have made a profound difference in helping communities and people connect elections to the impact they could and should have in addressing issues they care about. Education is the key to getting folks to participate.
"Sadly, places like Philly, where there are high populations of voters of color, have experienced intentional disinvestment in schools so [students] are not being taught how the government and politics is connected to their everyday lives. They also have no clue how to hold leaders to account once elected. Then because these communities are not educated politically, they are not participating, and because they don't participate, elected officials don't prioritize them.
"That said, there has been a concerted and consistent effort which started ahead of the 2020 election, focused on educating and engaging in every election and I believe this improvement is tied directly to those efforts. Many people still don't know why voting matters, who does what, what is on the ballot, and how to get resources and information to be an informed and confident voter. Together, if we keep doing what we have been doing collectively, you will start to see the turnout increasing because they will feel the empowerment that should result from participating. I think we will also see this democracy being more representative and responsive to their constituents because they know they will be held to account if they don't."