Is Larry Krasner in Trouble in Philadelphia?

Larry Krasner is a long-time, ideologically far Left defense attorney who, with the help of oodles of Soros money and a one-party jurisdiction, got himself elected District Attorney of Philadelphia.  The city (like many other one-party big cities) has since seen a surge in murder and other violent crime.  The victims are disproportionately black (although Krasner campaigned on improving the operation of the criminal justice system for minorities  —  raising the question whether getting murdered more often counts as an “improvement”).

Just as in other now-bloodsoaked cities with “progressive” DA’s (Los Angeles and San Francisco come most readily to mind), there has been pushback in Philadelphia.  Krasner is facing a primary challenge from a former deputy DA in his own office.  The challenge recently received a major, and perhaps decisive, boost.

Here’s the story, featuring former national DNC Chair and Bill Clinton pal, Ed Rendell.  The headline is, “Rendell endorses Vega for Philly DA, says recent wave of shootings was ‘the last straw’.”

Ed Rendell, who served as Philadelphia District Attorney, the city’s mayor, and Pennsylvania’s governor, is taking what he calls a “reluctant” step into the upcoming DA’s race to endorse former homicide prosecutor Carlos Vega in the Democratic primary over incumbent Larry Krasner.

Rendell said he felt compelled to make the endorsement based on the city’s gun violence epidemic. At least 185 people have been victims of homicides this year so far — a number police say is 30% higher than the same period last year. Officials say gun violence was the leading cause of death for young Black and Latino men in the city in 2020….

Rendell said he doesn’t usually like to criticize the successors in any of his previous government positions, but this past weekend’s surge of shootings — 25 people were shot, seven were killed — was “the final straw.”

“He’s not a bad man,” Rendell said of Krasner, and noted he’d happily support him if this were a race for Congress or the state Senate.

“But it’s not,” he said. “It’s an election for district attorney. And in the almost three and a half years he’s spent as district attorney, he’s clearly demonstrated that he simply doesn’t understand or won’t recognize that the first and most important part of a DA’s job is to protect people in this city from violent, brutal crime.”

Rendell has a long history with Vega. When Rendell was DA in the late 1970s and ’80s, he recruited Vega out of law school, and Vega became the first Latino homicide prosecutor in Pennsylvania.

I grew up in a Philadelphia suburb and have kept tabs a bit on Philly politics.  Rendell generally has his finger on the pulse.  When he publicly backs Krasner’s opponent, what that tells me is that the opponent has a chance.