Freshman Legislator Sets Record on Way to House

Chris Rabb…a winner from out of nowhere.

by Tony West

Chris Rabb set a record, at least for modern times, when he won the 200th Legislative Dist. seat on Nov. 8 by winning more votes than any other Democrat in Pennsylvania history.

The  46-year-old Mount Airy business consultant amassed 34,012 votes to defeat his Republican opponent Latryse McDowell. That he scooped up 95% of the votes in a solidly Democratic district amazed no one; but the total! Many state-rep races are won with 18,000 votes; a popular incumbent in a high-turnout one-party district may get 25,000 as a show of support.

But Rabb was a political newcomer with zero institutional support. Still, he even beat the victory lap taken by then-State Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-Montgomery) in 2008, who won that year uncontested, yet with 33,165 votes.

This pleases Rabb. “I’m very competitive,” he said. “Competition breeds excellence.”

In the spring primary, Rabb had pulled off a more-meaningful feat, unseating  State Rep. Tonyelle Cook-Artis (D-Northwest), who this spring won a special election to replace her former boss, State Rep. Cherelle Parker, who had just moved up to City Council’s 9th Dist, freshly vacated by retiring Marian Tasco.

He went after Cook-Artis in the special election as well and lost. But he cleaned her clock in the primary that spring. In a three-way race, Rabb came from nowhere to beat Cook-Artis and Bobbie Currie, 47-43-12%. He did so while speaking highly of his opponents.

There hadn’t been a competitive race since 1983 in the 200th Dist., Rabb points out. But the Democratic Party leadership in that area this spring was largely focused on going somewhere else, to higher office or to retirement. The state-rep seat was on nobody’s front burner.

Rabb went after this seat, representing the communities of Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy and Cedarbrook, as if it were the Chinese emperor’s throne; and he got it. It’s a testimony to hard work and good timing, although it’s too early to rule out skill. So without a doubt, freshman State Rep. Rabb will be scoped out by his peers.

Rabb has been a committeeman since 2006. He won the endorsement of the 9th Ward but was faced with the loyalty to Cook-Artis of the 22nd and 50th Ward leaders.

He overcame them, he said, with a combination of street work and social-media work.

“My secret sauce was to document the grassroots effort we were making on the street,” he said. “I had to self-document. To tell a story that could reach as many people as possible, by Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.”

For social media, he crafted a series of videos under the rubric of “Know your state rep.” One might state, for instance, “This is where I stand on women’s health issues.”

If Rabb sounds like a social-media geek, well, that’s one of his entrepreneurial claims to fame. Right after getting out of Yale, he explored a startup that was beaten out by iPod. But he did better with his early online blog, “Afro-Netizen.”

Since then, Rabb has carved out a career as a business consultant and adjunct professor at several schools in Philadelphia.

He is confident of his social-media skills and applied them to his legislative race. “In all, I made several thousand followers, which is significant for such a tiny race. I got 700 online donors,” he claimed. “I did something different, anomalous” in the intimate world of retail politics that is a state-rep race.

Team-building is one of the skills he peddles and he stresses that he worked hard at it on his campaign. He is particularly proud of his youth outreach.

“One day, I met an 18-year-old,” Rabb related. “The next day, he’s working on my campaign – and brings in a buddy. I was paying them out of my own pocket. I paid 41 high-school kids $15/hour shifts to work Election Day. Today, there are 41 kids who have a very different perspective on politics.”

Intense interest in the presidential race helped drive voter turnout, Rabb acknowledged. But he worked hard to harness the Clinton wave in Philadelphia to his down-ballot effort. He sent all his volunteers to the neighborhood Clinton office; in return, he made sure all the Clinton volunteers were equipped with his own campaign literature.

While not belonging to any political camp may have cost Rabb two ward endorsements, he figures this year’s anti-incumbent mood helped him overcome Cook-Artis in the primary.

A self-described progressive, Rabb said his only loyalty is to ideology. He did win endorsements from Neighborhood Networks, Philly for Change and the Working Families Party. Labor support came from Danny Grace’s Teamsters Local 830 as well as the Faculty & Staff Federation of CCP and the new Temple Association of University Professionals, a union that represents adjunct professors like Rabb – or at least like what Rabb used to be. After an acrimonious organizing campaign last year, Rabb’s contract with Temple was not renewed.

Rabb comes from a Chicago family with roots in the civil-rights struggle going back to the 19th century. His father was a physician; his mother served in the cabinet of the first Black mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington. “Politics, education and service were the pillars of my social identity,” he said.

Rabb attended Yale University as an undergraduate, where he protested the fact his residential college was named after pro-slavery Sen. John Calhoun – a controversy that still bubbles. Rabb founded the Yale Black Alumni Network.

He worked on Capitol Hill for his hometown Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman to serve in the US Senate. He organized a minority procurement fair for the Congressional Black Caucus. He was in Washington when Newt Gingrich’s Republicans took over the House of Representatives, “an eye-opening experience” for him.

A romantic interest drew him to Philadelphia in 2002, where he did graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania. Settling in Mount Airy in 2006, he became a committeeman then. But he swears he never thought of elective office until the summer of 2015; “I had seen a vast number of relatives lose political races, so there was nothing compelling about it.”

No legislative records will be set by Rabb or any other Democrat in the House of Representatives next year, and Rabb knows it. “Our Democratic Caucus will be the smallest since 1957,” he noted. “and with a veto-proof Senate.”

Rabb hopes he can hold onto his progressive principles nevertheless: “In a moment when many people feel there is a mandate for moderating one’s political values and agenda, moving to the center or right, I fundamentally disagree. Inclusion, accountability and transparency should be the hallmarks of the Democratic Party.”

But he argued that reality will compel some bipartisan acts, particularly when the General Assembly confronts the budget deficit, now $3 billion and growing. Rabb will focus on relationship-building, both in Harrisburg and City Council. He will look for chances to support public education and reform criminal justice where partnerships across the aisle are feasible.

“I believe everyone has a role,” Rabb said. “This moment chose me. I am a bridge-builder. How I govern will be similar to how I campaigned, with not a bad word to say.

“I feel particularly suited to fight within the belly of the beast.”

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