Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rabb became presumptive U.S. Representative Chris Rabb when approximately 65,000 PA 3rd District voters chose him to replace retiring Representative Dwight Evans in the May 2026 primary. Rabb, a 56-year-old progressive Democrat from Northwest Philly, had spent five terms in Harrisburg before running for higher office. (The 3rd District is the most reliably Democratic district in the country, and there is no Republican running in the general election.)

Rabb is interesting on a few levels. There are his politics, which lean Democratic Socialist. In the PA House of Representatives, he served on the Agricultural & Rural Affairs Committee, the Commerce Committee, and the Judicial Committee. He co-founded the PA Climate Caucus, and introduced bills to enable PA courts to use restorative justice in sentencing offenders, to counter corporate greenwashing (the practice by which companies deceptively present themselves as environmentally conscious or friendly), to repeal the death penalty in PA, along with what he called “parody legislation” to force certain men into having vasectomies (he wanted to show the ridiculousness of enacting laws on women’s bodies). Of these, only one bill — to repeal the death penalty — passed in the House, only to stall in the Senate.

A Politico profile called Rabb a “firebrand,” while Time magazine’s coverage of the race speculated that with Rabb’s victory, Congress can expect another member of the Squad, the heretofore all-female progressive federal lawmakers: New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley, and Pittsburgh, PA’s Summer Lee.

There are his family ties, which date back to both Philip Livingston, a Founding Father and enslaver, and John H. Murphy Sr., a formerly enslaved man who founded one of the country’s first Black-owned newspapers. He’s also had grandparents, parents and extended family deeply involved in civil rights and community activism. His ex-wife is a 2023 Macarthur Fellow Imani Perry, a Harvard professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and in African and African American Studies. The couple has two sons together.

Before going to Harrisburg, Rabb taught business at Temple University, wrote Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity, worked for the Clinton Administration in the1995 White House Conference on Small Business, after serving as an aide to then-U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun. He attended Yale undergrad and got his Master’s in Organizational Dynamics at Penn. He resides in East Mount Airy.

Rabb’s main competitors in the primary race were Ala Stanford, a physician in private practice, former Biden appointee and Black Doctors Consortium founder who became known for her smart and effective response to Covid, and State Senator Sharif Street, a longtime Democratic Party leader whose father John Street served two terms as mayor of Philadelphia. Both candidates had major party backing, Street from the local Democratic Party, Mayor Cherelle Parker, and the trades, and Stanford from Representatives Evans, Chrissy Houlahan and Madeline Dean. Prior to the primary, Axios reported that PA governor Josh Shapiro privately discouraged Philadelphia’s building trades unions and other allies from helping Rabb in any way.

Rabb counted Ocasio-Cortez, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Working Families Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America among his endorsements. He’s also received support from Hasan Piker, a left-wing activist, political commentator and influencer, who has been critical of Israel — including downplaying the rape of Israeli women in the October 7 attack — and who has made a number of controversial statements. Rabb appeared at an event in Malcolm X Park with Piker in April. The candidate later said even if he had knowledge of Piker’s stance, he would have still publicly conversed with him, because he relishes speaking with people with different ideas.

Every Voice, Every Vote funds Philadelphia media and community organizations to expand access to civic news and information. The coalition is led by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.

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