page_title: 1963 Philadelphia municipal election
section_title: Mayor
hierarchical_section_title: 1963 Philadelphia municipal election / Mayor
caption_attribution_description: English: 1963 Philadelphia mayor election by ward
context_page_description: Philadelphia's municipal election of November 5, 1963, involved contests for mayor, all seventeen city council seats, and several other executive and judicial offices. The Democrats lost vote share citywide and the Republicans gained one seat in City Council, but the Democratic acting mayor, James Hugh Joseph Tate, was elected to a full term and his party maintained their hold on the city government. The election was the first decline in the Democrats' share of the vote since they took control of the city government in the 1951 elections, and showed the growing tension between the reformers and ward bosses within their party.
context_section_description: James Tate had served as acting mayor since Dilworth's resignation on February 12, 1962. In 1963, he sought the Democratic nomination for election in his own right. Tate's attempt at a four-year term exposed a growing breach in the coalition of independent reformers and Democratic ward bosses that had cemented that party's grip on the electorate since 1951. The Democratic City Committee, led by Representative William J. Green Jr., endorsed Tate, but the opinion was not universal. Former mayor Clark, now a United States Senator, endorsed the primary challenge by a slate of Democratic candidates proposed by the Americans for Democratic Action, a left-leaning group of which he was a member. For mayor, the ADA and Clark pushed Walter M. Phillips, a former city representative and one of the architects of the Democrats' reform measures of the early 1950s.
  The contrast between Tate and Phillips was highlighted in the primary campaign. Tate, the self-made son of Irish-American factory workers, charged that Phillips saw government service as "a hobby" and claimed he was "too inexperienced and does not know enough to deal with the problems" of running a large city. Phillips in turn charged Tate with permitting corruption in city government, failing to improve schools, and driving out qualified city employees in favor of partisan patronage hires. In a low-turnout primary, the Democratic electorate sided with Tate, who tallied 128,840 votes to Phillips's 40,931 and perennial candidate H. Jerome Jaspan's 13,165. Tate's victory over Phillips, Clark later wrote, "marked the end of the 'independent' good-government influence in City Hall."
  The Republican nomination was also easily won by the party organization's favored candidate, James T. McDermott. McDermott, who had lost a special election for city council in 1962, was a lawyer who had previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney. During the general election campaign, McDermott tried to take on the reform mantle, saying that Tate had worked to sabotage the good-government reforms of the Clark and Dilworth administrations. Tate, for his part, contrasted his experience with McDermott's and touted his endorsement by the AFL–CIO. McDermott said that Tate "has never been off the public payroll in twenty-five years" and criticized the mayor's refusal to debate him.
  As the election neared, McDermott's attacks appeared to be working and political observers predicted a close race, possibly within 20,000 votes. While it was the closest race in years, the actual results were more solidly in favor of Tate, who won by nine percentage points. After a day of heavier-than-expected voter turnout, McDermott conceded that the mayor had won "fair and square." Tate thanked labor leaders, ex-Mayor Dilworth, and chairman Green for their efforts, while extending a special thanks to President John F. Kennedy, who campaigned for Tate the previous week. Although the campaign focused on issues of corruption and bossism, race also played a role; local black leaders, including Cecil B. Moore, strongly supported Tate and claimed that McDermott had "written off the Negro vote."
caption: Results by ward (Tate in blue, McDermott in red)
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