Primaries for registered Democrats and Republicans around the city are Tuesday, May 21 in an election that could reshape city politics for years to come.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. tomorrow. You can find your polling place by going here.

The mayor’s seat and all 17 City Council seats (10 district and 7 at-large) are up for election this year. And in Philadelphia, where Democrats dominate local politics, most races are decided in the primaries.

Instead of providing an exhaustive list of candidates, we have decided to provide links to folks who have compiled a variety of perspectives. 

• Billy Penn has a nice rundown on mayoral candidates: incumbent Jim Kenney and challengers Anthony Williams and Alan Butkovitz. Key issues in that race include stop-and-frisk, the soda tax, Philadelphia’s status as a “sanctuary city” and plans for “safe injection” sites in the city.

• WHYY has a solid rundown of At-Large City Council candidates that includes endorsements, campaign donors and responses to important questions like their stance on the soda tax, councilmanic prerogative and tax abatements.

• Ballotpedia details the four ballot measures. These include questions about making language in the city charter gender neutral, making the Office of Immigrant Affairs permanent, steps to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour and a measure to create “public safety enforcement officers” – basically unarmed traffic cops.

• Reclaim Philadelphia, the progressive grassroots organization that helped propel candidates in last year’s general election, has a list of at-large City Council candidate endorsements.

• Voters will also decide on six candidates for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and one for the Philadelphia Municipal Court. Some 25 candidates are running for the Common Pleas seats. Micah Mahjoubian, policy director for state Sen. Sharif Street, has put together a useful, non-partisan clearinghouse of the judicial candidates. If you are really into these races, you can watch the “Judge the Judges” candidate forum that PhillyCAM hosted in April.

Many in West Philly have a close eye on the City Council 3rd District race, which pits longtime incumbent Jannie Blackwell against Jamie Gauthier, a non-profit leader and Southwest Philadelphia native.

Blackwell, who took over the seat when her husband and local political icon Lucien Blackwell stepped down to run for Congress in 1992, hasn’t faced a serious challenger in two decades. Someone with a name other than “Blackwell” hasn’t held the seat in more than 40 years.

Philadelphia Magazine sat down with Gauthier, the former executive director of the Fairmount Park Conservancy who grew up in Kingsessing, back in February for a pretty extensive Q&A. Since then she has been dogged by her association with Philly 3.0 (you have probably seen the mailers or the talking baby TV commercial), which supports “business friendly” candidates and was founded by real estate developers.

Blackwell has had her share of bad press recently as well. She has become the poster child for “councilmanic prerogative,” which gives council members extraordinary control over land use in their districts. Development pressure and ongoing gentrification in many West Philly neighborhoods has made the practice a hot topic during the primary campaign.