In PA's 4th, Kathy Barnette Mounts Challenge To Madeleine Dean

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — Two women with starkly different backgrounds and perspectives on equality, coronavirus, and a range of other issues are vying to represent Pennsylvania's 4th District in U.S. Congress.

Challenging Republican Kathy Barnette, a former corporate finance professor and conservative political commentator that has appeared on national media, is running against incumbent Democrat Rep. Madeleine Dean, a longtime local state representative.

Barnette faces an uphill battle. The "solid Democratic" label is applied by most outside election analysts, including the oft-cited Cook Political Report. For Barnette, she understands she is running against an establishment, and she's embraced it, casting herself as an outsider and her background — from an impoverished childhood on a pig farm in Alabama to running for Congress — as emblematic of the American dream.

"I succeeded because no one told me I was a victim," Barnette said in a recent campaign advertisement. "We watch as primarily white liberals come into predominately black communities and tell us what our problems are and how to fix them," she added in an editorial published by Fox News following the killing of George Floyd.

Dean's stance on these issues, meanwhile, is clearly quite different.

"(The death of George Floyd) exposed and taught us that there is systemic racism in our police and our institutions," Dean said during a recent town hall, echoing the refrain of the Black Lives Matter movement and the voices on the left calling for criminal justice reform.

Much of Barnette's campaign, and her political commentating over the years, has focused on this point: that white, rich (Barnette's ads target Dean's personal wealth) Democrats don't understand black communities. She advocates instead for personal responsibility and giving disenfranchised communities "a seat at the table."

Another fundamental philosophical difference between the two candidates is their approach to coronavirus, highlighted during a recent debate put on by the Lower Merion and Narberth League of Women Voters. Dean has been a supporter of the shutdowns and Gov. Wolf's policy since the start of the pandemic. Barnette again offered a different perspective: keeping children home from school disproportionately impacts the poor, and, particularly, minorities.

Dean was first elected during the 2018 midterms when she won a landslide victory over Republican Dan David, 211,240 to 121,467. Dean was among four southeastern Pennsylvania women elected to their first term in Congress during the 2018 "blue wave," which saw sweeping Democratic victories nationwide.

Since her election, Dean has figured prominently in the left wing of the Democratic Party, joining the Progressive Caucus and advocating for other keystone progressive issues: increased minimum wage, universal healthcare, and gun control. She endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in early March, shortly after he took a lead over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and after the rest of the competition dropped out. She's since campaigned extensively for Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris in Montgomery County.

Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District was newly formed when the state's district maps were redrawn a few years ago. This district now covers entire county save for a small sliver in the north-central. Most of Montgomery County and this district was previously represented by U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, who took over the newly created 2nd district.

While Barnette has clearly articulated a compelling challenge to Dean, there's little to indicate that Montgomery County's position as a blue stronghold has wavered in the past two years.

Election Day is Nov. 3. You can register to vote by mail until Oct. 27 here.

This article originally appeared on the Abington Patch