Chris Rabb Elected to U.S. House in Pennsylvania 3rd District

Democratic state Rep. Chris Rabb was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, defeating independent Dennis Mahoney in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, WHYY reported.

The Associated Press called the race at 8:28 p.m. Rabb will take the seat in January, replacing Rep. Dwight Evans, who announced he would not seek reelection after suffering a stroke in 2024. Evans has served in Congress since 2016 and, before that, represented Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane neighborhood in the state House for 36 years.

The victory hands a Philadelphia seat to a self-described democratic socialist who ran on a platform of affordable housing, Medicare for all, universal basic income and a living wage. Rabb, backed by grassroots organizations, surged to a primary win in May over former Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair and state Sen. Sharif Street, as well as political newcomers Dr. Ala Stanford and Shaun Griffith. His general election campaign drew national support from “the squad” — U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ro Khanna — along with Philadelphia City Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke, state Reps. Elizabeth Fiedler and Rick Krajewski, and state Sen. Nikil Saval.

A Campaign That Looked Past the Labels

Despite his alignment with the Democratic Socialists of America, Rabb insisted the label was not the centerpiece of his run.

“People were not talking about socialism, they were looking for change,” Rabb said Tuesday afternoon. “They’re looking for a fighter. They’re looking for folks who are going to have bold policy directives that are going to move the country in the right direction and move us towards a multiracial democracy. I think the labels and the fiefdoms are the distractions.”

Asked what his first priority will be once he heads to Washington, Rabb pointed to coalition-building rather than legislation.

“I got to sit down with the people who are going to be leading the Democratic caucus and figure out how to lead together,” Rabb told WHYY News. “No one does it alone.”

On Tuesday evening, Rabb appeared on a Twitch stream with Hasan Piker, a leftist political commentator with a large online platform, alongside other DSA candidates nationwide.

“You can’t fake the funk,” Rabb said. “People can smell inauthentic politicians a mile away, so if you meet people in good faith and you speak their language and the things that they care about and they see themselves in this campaign or any campaign, they get involved. And let me tell you, young people are coming out.”

A District Where Poverty Runs Deep

More than half of the 3rd Congressional District’s roughly 768,000 residents are Black, and nearly one in five lives below the poverty line, compared with about 12% statewide. For a candidate who campaigned on a living wage and universal basic income, those numbers are not abstract — they describe the electorate he will serve starting in January.

Chris Rabb’s election to the U.S. House, supported by grassroots organizations, will bring him to Washington in January, where he has said his first priority will be building relationships with Democratic caucus leaders to figure out how to lead together.