Philadelphia municipal election, 1957

Philadelphia's municipal election of November 5, 1957, involved the election of the district attorney, city controller, and the remainder of a term for one city council seat, as well as several row offices and judgeships. Democrats were successful citywide, continuing a run of victories racked up after the passage of a new city charter in 1951 despite growing divisions between factions of the party. Victor H. Blanc, the incumbent district attorney, led the Democratic ticket to victory. They held the city council seat and took two citywide offices that Republicans had won in 1953. In the judges' elections, most were endorsed by both parties but in the one race that pitted a Democratic candidate against a Republican, the Democrats were successful in seating their candidate, former Congressman Earl Chudoff.

After the Democrats' electoral victories in 1951 and 1955, they hoped to further solidify their hold on city offices by ousting the few Republicans left in power. At the same time, however, they were faced with growing divisions within their own party. Democrats had won in 1951 by combining with reform-minded Republicans and independents. By 1954, however, some Democrats led by Council President James Hugh Joseph Tate tried to weaken the civil service reforms of the new charter by allowing city employees to become involved in electioneering once more. They fell just short of the two-thirds vote in Council to put their amendments on the ballot, but in 1956, Tate's faction again proposed charter amendments aimed at weakening civil service protections and this time found the required vote to put it on to the ballot for popular approval. The referendum failed in a vote that April.

The rift widened by 1957 as U.S. Senator (and former Democratic mayor of Philadelphia) Joseph S. Clark, Jr. joined his successor, Richardson Dilworth, in refusing to back the Democratic ticket, citing mismanagement and political cronyism. Republicans, led by City Committee Chairman Wilbur H. Hamilton, used the occasion to woo reform-minded voters by claiming their ticket was free of machine control, and that they "owe nothing to the political bosses." Meanwhile, voter interest in the off-year election was low despite extensive radio and print advertising by both parties.

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