Chris Rabb warns of ‘great peril’ for Democrats if party ignores Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and other progressive wins
After winning Philly's heated congressional primary, Rabb has campaigned for other progressives across the country. His endorsees have gone 9 for 10 since May.
WASHINGTON — Chris Rabb is on a winning streak.
Since his victory in Philadelphia’s highly contested Democratic congressional primary in May, the state lawmaker and presumptive successor to retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans has campaigned across the country — going nine for 10 in races where he’s supported progressives against more establishment-backed, moderate Democrats.
That wave of momentum — for a left-leaning faction hoping to transform the next generation of the Democratic Party — culminated this week in Michigan, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won a consequential U.S. Senate primary in the key swing state .
Though not a self-described democratic socialist like Rabb, El-Sayed ran on a similar anti-corporation, anti-Israel platform that focused on enacting policies like Medicare for All and dismantling U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Rabb, who was on the ground in Detroit for the final push of the campaign and at El-Sayed’s victory party on Tuesday, said the Michigander prevailed “against extraordinary odds.”
U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, with establishment support and about $62 million in outside spending on her behalf, had a roughly 9-to-1 spending advantage over El-Sayed, according to The New York Times. Her loss amid that kind of massive spending “is a testament to the power of economic populism and the growing frustration with incrementalism,” Rabb said.
“His primary win proves that economic populism and bold progressivism has growing support across the ideological spectrum among Democrats whether they’re voting in Michigan or Pennsylvania,” Rabb said.
The five-term state representative from East Mount Airy has thrown his energy into other campaigns as his own is pretty much complete. In one of the bluest in the country, he defeated a pair of more moderate Democrats — State Sen. Sharif Street and physician Ala Stanford — and will not face a Republican opponent in the November election. The district covers about half of the city, from South Philadelphia through the Northwest.
Rabb began looking beyond his district borders almost immediately after the primary.
In New Jersey’s Trenton-based congressional district, he campaigned for Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former combat surgeon who has also provided medical care to Gazans during the war with Israel. In New York, he threw his weight behind Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, two of the democratic socialists also backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
He turned to other candidates in California, Colorado and Michigan as he door-knocked, called voters and appeared in virtual events.
“Ever since May 19, which was the night I won, I’ve been paying it forward with so many amazing candidates,” Rabb said during a recent virtual fundraiser for El-Sayed in which Rabb said he was signing and giving away the pink “Philadelphia” baseball hat he was wearing to a lucky donor.
Rabb hasn’t weighed in on every battle between progressives and moderates. He did not endorse Cori Bush, the former member of Congress and democratic socialist who failed in her attempt at a comeback in Missouri this week. He also has not endorsed every congressional candidate promoted by two key national coalitions that supported him — Justice Democrats, which has been a force behind the election of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, and the Democratic Socialists of America.
The one candidate he endorsed who did not win was Saikat Chakrabarti, a former campaign manager and chief of staff to Ocasio-Cortez who tried to beat former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked successor in San Francisco.
And not all of Rabb’s endorsees are guaranteed to join him in Congress next year. Justin Pearson, a Tennessee state lawmaker who won a U.S. House primary on Thursday, will be the nominee in a state where Republicans redistricted this year in an attempt to root-out Democratic incumbents. Pearson’s district is considered “solid Republican” by the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan group that rates competitive districts.
While some Democrats have questioned whether progressives can win competitive general election races, Rabb said he was “confident that strategically supporting anti-establishment populist candidates who bring with them new, more active and enthusiastic voters will significantly increase turnout in November.”
“Ignoring the unique strengths of such candidates and campaigns will be at the Democratic Party’s great peril,” he added.
That sentiment echoed other comments he’s made in recent months as more centrist leaders in his party questioned the progressive momentum. In June, he responded to an interview in which Gov. Josh Shapiro called the democratic socialists who won in New York an example of “performative politics.” Those candidates would now need to govern effectively, he said, adding that they were not indicative of the types of Democrats winning in Pennsylvania.
“You’re seeing very different-looking congressional races, and certainly very different Democratic candidates here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro told CNN, prompting Rabb to respond on social media with, “Ummm…”
Shapiro, a popular figure as he seeks reelection this fall, has been lending his support to Democrats in four competitive congressional seats in Pennsylvania that are held by Republicans, including a swing district in suburban Bucks County. Flipping those seats in a way that could help Democrats capture the U.S. House majority has been a top priority and has further fueled speculation that Shapiro is eyeing a run for the White House in 2028.
At the same time, Shapiro has not appeared with or supported Rabb during his campaign, though his team has said the governor looks forward to working with whoever replaces Evans.
As Rabb has crisscrossed the country, he’s also drawn more ire from the state’s other most nationally prominent Democrat — U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, who Rabb dismissively refers to as “the F word.”
Fetterman has included Rabb in his broad denouncements of progressives who are winning Democratic primaries. Progressives like Rabb, meanwhile, have indicated they hope to replace Fetterman with a progressive candidate in 2028.
“Rabb, he won, and he ran on being a very, very anti-Israel guy,” Fetterman said in early June at an American Jewish Committee conference in Washington. “It’s actually a virtue (in the modern Democratic Party)... It’s heartbreaking for me.”
After El-Sayed’s win this week against a candidate who received more money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee than possibly any other candidate on record, Rabb and the coalition behind him have shown no signs of slowing down.
“Ground Zero was Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, winning a key congressional primary,” Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said on the live-streamed fundraiser with Rabb this week.
The “ripple-effects of winning a battleground Senate contest” like in Michigan, Green said, will be significant.
“The message will be undebatable that we won, that we’re on the rise, and that we can win anywhere,” he said.