WEEK 2:

Philadelphia vs. Dallas

No excuses—we didn’t get it done on the field Sunday against Dallas. I promise you, together we’re going to get our mistakes fixed and play better football next week. Meantime, in our civic matchup against Dallas, they also beat us, but it’s a lot closer than the final score indicates. As you can see from below, in a number of categories—poverty, volunteer and higher education rates—we’re within a few percentage points. But the statistic that jumps out the most to me is a category that we win: We decisively beat Dallas in voter turnout, 19.57 percent to 7.2 percent in our last mayoral general elections. To be clear: 19.57 percent isn’t good, and we have to do better.

So why is turnout so low in Dallas? Well, incumbent mayor Mike Rawlings won in a landslide this year, so there might not have been the enthusiasm of a competitive election. (Then again, our Mayor Michael Nutter also won reelection by a landslide in 2011). In addition, Texas has been ground zero for restrictive voter ID laws. But Prof. Richardson Dilworth of Drexel’s Center for Public Policy says it’s more likely that something systemic is at play when it comes to Dallas’ low turnout. “The mayor in Philadelphia is far more important than the mayor of Dallas, which has a ‘weak mayor’ system,” Dilworth explains. “The Dallas mayor is actually just a member of Council who is elected at-large. The real power in southwestern cities tends to reside with the city manager, who is appointed by Council. Imagine electoral turnout for Philadelphia City Council elections if people weren’t also voting for a strong mayor at the same time, and you’d sort of have the Dallas situation.”

Next week, we take on the New York Jets. I’m a competitive person on the football field—and off. So let’s sweep the Jets next week.