Rep. Madeleine Dean on what to watch in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is shaping up to be a critical state in the 2024 presidential election, with both the Trump and Harris campaigns spending considerable time there. Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, the U.S. representative for Pennsylvania’s 4th district, joins Geoff Bennett to discuss.

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Geoff Bennett: Well, Pennsylvania is shaping up to be a critical country. State in this presidential election, with both the Trump and Harris campaign spending considerable time and money there.

Congresswoman Madeleine Dean represents the state’s Fourth District. That’s a suburb of Philadelphia. And she joins us now.

Great to have you back on the program.

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA): I’m delighted to be here with you on this exciting night.

Geoff Bennett: Well, look, when we last spoke in early July, you were among those Democrats who was supporting President Biden, even as party leaders were at the time privately suggesting he exit the race. You said he defeated Donald Trump once and that he had the record to do it again.

I wonder what you make now of the way in which this party has so quickly coalesced around Kamala Harris.

Rep. Madeleine Dean: Well, and I do stand by Joe Biden. What a record of accomplishment, 50-plus years. And I am delighted to see the kind of response that he gets tonight.

It will blow the roof off this place, I’m certain.

Geoff Bennett: As they start the sound check here as we’re speaking.

Rep. Madeleine Dean: Exactly, yes.

Geoff Bennett: Yes.

Rep. Madeleine Dean: But — and all the lead-up speakers before him.

But I was also clear-eyed about the challenges ahead of us. And I expressed that to my caucus, as well as to the campaign. I stand by the president and all of what he has done, all the accomplishments, I will say, alongside a Democratic Congress and a Democratic Senate.

Think of all the bills that we have passed that he spearheaded and signed into law that changed our economy, grew jobs. So I’m just delighted with where we are. The enthusiasm is palpable back in my district, in the Fourth Congressional District, suburban Philadelphia. And delighted to be here.

This is my first convention.

Geoff Bennett: Really?

Rep. Madeleine Dean: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: So, what do you expect we will hear from President Biden tonight as he makes the case for Vice President Harris as the party’s nominee?

Rep. Madeleine Dean: I think we will hear more of the accomplishments and the record that they have set. And you can talk number one about the economy. And we have seen Donald Trump and J.D. Vance try to talk about the economy. They have put forward Project 2025. They have put forward the notion of big tariffs and mass deportations.

That will be incredibly inflationary. Every economist tells us that. So they will talk about the economy. They will talk — he will talk about the accomplishment of growing 15-plus million jobs, bringing inflation down, bringing manufacturing back, bringing the Safer Communities Act into law, which is actually saving lives from gun violence.

It’s just such a stark contrast of going back to something that was incredibly dark and caustic to our democracy, as capped off by January the 6th, as you well know, just a very criminal, corrupt set of norms for the former president.

We’re not going back, as my granddaughter says, who’s 3. We’re not going back. We’re going forward for the American people, for my children, our grandchildren, for the economy, for the environment, for education, for women’s rights, for freedom.

Geoff Bennett: All of the enthusiasm, energy, unity on the Democratic side, is there a risk that that masks the fact that this is still a competitive race? And, as one Democrat today told me, this is Donald Trump’s race to lose.

Rep. Madeleine Dean: I absolutely think you’re right. We mustn’t get overly enthusiastic, and so rose-eyed glasses that we think that this is going to be a cakewalk. It is not.

And my district, suburban Philadelphia, is going to be the place to watch. Pennsylvania will be the Keystone State again. We have to dig in. We have to do the work to protect our democracy, to grow our democracy. And what a better place to do it than in the birthplace of our democracy?

So I’m also clear-eyed about that. This is not just such enthusiasm that you win a presidential race this way. We have to dig in and do the work and tend to our democracy.

Geoff Bennett: Are Democrats in a better position to hold the House — or, rather, win the House, in your view, with a Harris/Walz ticket than they were with a Biden/Harris ticket?

Rep. Madeleine Dean: I feel the enthusiasm. And one of our worries was that there was — perhaps people would sit out the election, particularly the congressional elections, not knowing the difference between a majority and a minority and what difference that makes.

Take a look at the difference that it has made this Congress as Democrats went into the minority. We passed six massive big bills when we were in the majority. This year, the Republican majority can’t get out of their own way. You saw what they did in terms of having a speaker. You saw what they have done in terms of passing budget bills.

They let us go home a week early in this incredibly crucial cycle because they couldn’t get their own members to do the work of passing budget bills with a seriousness about governing.

Geoff Bennett: You represent a solidly Democratic district President Biden won by some 24 points back in 2020. In many ways, what happens in your district is a case study for how Democrats might vote across the country.

How are they responding to Kamala Harris and to the policies she’s put forward so far?

Rep. Madeleine Dean: Well, I have been doing a number of canvass launches and helping people get their literature together, picking up their signs and getting their turfs to go knock on doors.

And I will tell you I have met person after person. One man, in particular, he said — he walked up to me and he said: “I’m not even sure that I know you, but I know you’re my congresswoman. I am 59 years old. I have never put a yard sign up. I have never contributed to a campaign. I have never knocked on a door for a candidate. I’m in.”

That’s really the feeling we are getting in our district. People are in. They want to do the work of democracy because they recognize how important it is.

Geoff Bennett: Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, thanks so much for being with us.

Rep. Madeleine Dean: Thanks for having me.