With almost a dozen candidates vying for retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans’ seat in the 2026 midterm election, the 9th Ward Democratic Committee, which represents Chestnut Hill and parts of Mt. Airy, held a candidate forum in Mt. Airy on Dec. 4 featuring five candidates. 

The candidates who attended were state Rep. Chris Rabb, Chestnut Hill resident Dr. Ala Stanford, state Sen. Sharif Street, state Rep. Morgan Cephas, and Dr. David Oxman. 

Held at the United Lutheran Seminary, attendees packed into the large hall in one of the bluest districts in the country. The forum was moderated by former public media journalist Stephanie Marudas, with additional questions from audience and committee members. 

Dozens of questions were read to the candidates, with a focus on affordability, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Israel. 

One audience member also asked whether the candidates would commit to refusing corporate donations from pharmaceutical or insurance companies’ political action committees (PACs). Rabb and Oxman were the only ones to fully commit to not accepting such money. 

“In the 10 years I’ve run for office, I’ve never taken corporate PAC money of any kind,” Rabb said. “So yes.” 

“I would not say that I wouldn’t take money from pharmaceutical companies,” Stanford said. “The pharmaceutical companies are part of the way that I’m able to provide medication to my patients that can’t afford it. Now, it doesn’t mean that I blindly say ‘Here,’ but what it does mean is that I am trying to lower the cost. I am trying to provide care, and a lot of folks don’t have access. … I won’t emphatically say no, because if it will benefit my community in this district, then I would.” 

She also said, "I think I can say I've never accepted because I've never run for office before."

Stanford's team later clarified that  "Dr. Stanford has not received money from pharmaceutical PACs."

Street responded next, saying, “I don’t do the pledge thing, but I’ll tell you about donations. What I will tell you is I led hearings for six hours and cross-examined pharma on a pharmaceutical transparency bill, where I was the lead sponsor. I will continue to advance that legislation in Congress. … I took them to task over and over again.” 

Cephas followed, saying, “I’ve dealt with both when it comes to the issue of maternal health, and I have been adamantly holding them accountable for the fact that Black women are three times more likely to die when it comes to giving birth than their white female counterparts … I don’t believe in PAC money and donations to determine my policy perspective, because my policy perspective in delivering is based on the constituents that I represent.” 

Oxman concluded by saying that pharmaceutical companies “also take [doctors] out to dinner, and they’ll say, ‘Well, I mean, I’m just gonna eat the dinner, I’m not gonna be influenced by what they’re giving me.’ And I say to them, why do you think they do it? … You think they just want to hang out with you? No, there’s one reason why they do it, because it works, and they know that. So I’ll answer that question simply. Hell no.” 

Candidate introductions

The forum granted the candidates an opportunity to introduce themselves to potential voters, with the first question asking why they chose to run for Congress. 

Cephas opened, responding that, “I’m running for office because Washington right now is being detrimental to so many of the families, the working families that I represent, not just in my district, but across the city of Philadelphia … Washington is not working, and not just for myself or my family, but again, for the constituents that I represent.” 

Speaking of her mother being a union member and picketing in 1986, Cephas spoke of affordability and her personal and family’s struggle with it. She ended by speaking of her work in the state House to win back a majority for Democrats. 

Oxman responded next, saying, “I’m a medical school professor and an intensive-care doctor. And one of the things about practicing intensive care medicine is you will consistently meet people on some of the very worst days of their lives … You’ll leave the hospital and you’ll realize that health is much more than just having the absence of illness or disease, and it’s more than just surviving … for too many years, I’ve seen too many Philadelphians who we have failed because poverty or financial or educational opportunities weren’t there.”

He added, “In short, I’m running for Congress because I want to do something about that, because I know you can’t be healthy if your job doesn’t pay you a living wage, and your kids can’t be healthy if their school is overcrowded and underfunded, and you certainly can’t be healthy if you can’t afford your medications because you’ve been kicked off your health insurance.”

Rabb positioned himself as the progressive option among the candidates, saying, “I’m running because we’re ready for a movement-aligned approach to governance, not another establishment ally.” 

“We’ve got to tax the rich,” he said. “We’ve got to end corporate giveaways. You have to end genocide in Palestine and militarism abroad. We have to destroy the tools of fascism that are dividing us in our country, and we need to spend that money on guaranteeing housing, quality education, and a living wage for all, public transit, food security, clean air and water, the arts, green spaces, and so much more.” 

Rabb added, “We can do that by investing in people so that our lives are not just about survival, they’re about creating opportunity towards thriving in the richest nation in world history. I partnered with Democrats and Republicans alike to get critical work done and put collaboration above credit.” 

Stanford, who was endorsed by Evans to run for his seat, said that “what I see in my exam room shows me exactly what families are facing: the cost of medicine, groceries, childcare, housing, and heat. I’m running because I lived it and I understand it. Others may talk about what they hope to do, but I am here to tell you what I’ve already done at scale, under pressure, and for this city. I didn’t wait for a title to lead, and I won’t wait for permission in Washington.” 

She spoke of growing up in Philadelphia in public housing and eventually becoming the first Black woman pediatric surgeon entirely trained in the United States. She discussed founding the Black Doctors Consortium, stepping up when “government systems failed.” 

Street, who previously served as Democratic Party chair for Pennsylvania, spoke about his work organizing the party to take control of the state House. He also spoke of violence experienced within his community and the need to ban assault weapons, the struggles over Medicaid cuts, and his work as a state senator.

“You talk about fighting Donald Trump, in 2020, when no one wanted to put their name on the litigation … 12 times I took him to court, and every time I beat him, and I’ll beat him as a congressman,” Street said. 

Jeff Duncan, leader of the 9th Democratic Ward, concluded the forum by thanking the candidates and discussing the ward’s future endorsement of one of the candidates.

“I think our 9th Ward candidate forum was a huge success,” he told the Local. “We had a standing room crowd of 300 voters come to see the top candidates running to become our next representative in Congress, and the energy level and enthusiasm in the room was enormous. All five candidates at the forum acquitted themselves quite well and we clearly have an impressive array of options before us.”

Anyone interested in listening to the full forum can hear the audio on 9thwarddems.org.

This story was updated on Dec. 11 to clarify Standord's quote.