MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa. — The dark blue 4th Congressional District, which covers much of Montgomery County, is up for grabs this election season, with incumbent Rep. Madeline Dean expected to win easily while her Republican challenger Henry Winkler is trying to make the campaign interesting.
Dean, a Glenside native and former Pennsylvania congressman, has become a national figure since he was first elected to the position in 2019. After the January 6 US presidential election, she was appointed impeachment manager for the bipartisan task force investigating former President Trump. 2021 Rebellion.
Montgomery County, the state’s third most populous county, has both blue and red voters and voters everywhere in between, but the balance of power almost always tips to the left in countywide elections.
Although the number of votes in the district is limited, Dean has a 99% chance of winning on The Hill. In 2022, he defeated Republican businessman Christian Nascimento by nearly 90,000 votes, surpassing his 83,000-vote lead over Kathy Barnett in 2020.
Mr. Winkler, of Elkins Park, is a U.S. Marine, former Tennessee police officer, and CEO and president of Wings for Warriors, a nonprofit organization for veterans.
The Dean campaign has largely ignored Winkler, focusing most of its time and public appearances on the Democratic ticket campaign in general and Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Bob Casey in particular. Ta. Both are in what is expected to be a much closer race than Dean.
Meanwhile, Mr. Winkler went on the offensive, attacking Mr. Dean after a recent appearance with Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Montgomery County to discuss the effects of inflation.
“Dean should go. She has no knowledge of basic economics and believes more regulation and reckless spending can be used to turn the economy around,” Winkler said. “We need to use a Milton Friedman approach of letting the economy function naturally. We need to deregulate, lower taxes, open manufacturing, and make, buy, and export American products.”
Winkler also said he “despised” Dean and his family because of their alleged ties to sweatshops and corrupt business practices in Taiwan.
“She made her fortune through the trafficking of Taiwanese sweatshop workers,” Winkler said. The issue has been used by Republicans to undermine Mr. Dean since his first election to Congress in 2018, but attempts by the Pennsylvania Republican Party to press Mr. Dean for answers have been unsuccessful.
While this claim is at best partially true, it is also unproven that Dean’s husband, Patrick Cunnan, runs a business heavily funded by a large Taiwanese company.
