[2][3] While Longstreth received many split ticket votes from Democrats, Rizzo found support among unions and the white working-class electorate.

[3] Rizzo was the first Italian-American mayor of Philadelphia,[3] and would be reelected in 1975 before a failed attempt to change the city charter to allow him to run for a third term.

[6] Green refused to discuss most issues, and avoided interviews or written questions by the media or civic groups.

[6] Rizzo had earned goodwill with many voters, who perceived his command of the police department as having staved off the sort of violent rioting other cities had experienced years earlier.

[6] Rizzo, who had resigned as Police Commissioner earlier in the year, ran a "law-and-order" based campaign to appeal to white, blue-collar voters.

Longstreth also criticized Rizzo's policy proposal to ban tax increases in the next four years as an "insult to the intelligence of voters" as the city of Philadelphia faced budgetary issues at the time.

Nonetheless, Rizzo benefited from white racial backlash en route to his first mayoral victory.