PA 4th Congressional District Election Results: Dean Vs Barnette

Update: 12:03 a.m.

Madeleine Dean has won re-election in the 4th District, the Associated Press called shortly before midnight. Though only 286 of Montgomery County's precincts are reporting, Dean appears to have an insurmountable lead. Tallies currently stand at:

Dean: 138,501

Barnette: 94,935

11:47 p.m.

There is still no update to the results tally. Barnette is dancing.

10:55 p.m.

There are now 80 precincts reporting in Montgomery County, with 431 still not reporting. On the mail-in side, 103,118 of 239,336 ballots have been counted.

10:51 p.m.

The next wave of ballots has been counted in Montgomery County, with Dean making more modest gains this time around. However, she's still managed to expand her already significant lead, with both mail-in and in-person votes counted. In Montgomery County, she now leads Barnette, 90,522 to 32,994. The overall tally, including Berks, currently stands at:

• Dean: 92,337
• Barnette: 38,913

10:37 p.m.

Berks County results are in, with all 11 precincts reporting. While this does not yet include provisional ballots, it appears Barnette won a sizable victory in the county, with 5,919 votes to Dean's 1,815. However, it does little to cut into Dean's overall lead. Here's how things now stand:

Dean: 60,183

Barnette: 14,511

10:05 p.m.

Counting the rest of the vote in Montgomery County could take "40 more hours," Commissioner Ken Lawrence said Tuesday night. MORE.

9:34 p.m.

Dean shared that her last campaign stop at a polling place Tuesday night was the Abington Free Library. "Thankful to have my family with me. Excited for the future of Pennsylvania and our democracy," she wrote on Twitter.

No further results are in. The count remains:

• Dean: 58,368
• Barnette: 8,592

9:10 p.m.

No Berks County mail-ins have yet been tabulated, and preliminary in-person results from precincts in either county of the 4th District have not yet been released.

8:53 p.m.

Dean has leapt to a huge lead as the first mail-in ballots begin to be counted. The below totals only include mail-in ballots in Montgomery County thus far, not Berks County, and no in-person ballots:

• Dean: 58,368
• Barnette: 8,592

8:35 p.m.

"Montgomery County is already reporting record high voter turnout," State Rep. Liz Hanbidge said after polls closed, a sentiment that was echoed by party officials on both sides of the aisle throughout the day Tuesday.

"While this is exciting news, it also means that definitive results may take several days to be confirmed," Hanbidge added. "Please BE PATIENT and remember that the most important thing is that every single vote is counted!"

8:28 p.m.

Dean spent the day in polling locations around Norristown, as well as making campaign stops in North Wales, Lansdale, and Ambler.

"Lines are long but enthusiasm and turnout are high," Dean said shortly before polls closed on Tuesday. "We're all ready to turn Pennsylvania blue."

8:26 p.m.

"I've done all that I knew to do," Barnette said in a Facebook Live video posted shortly after polls closed Tuesday evening. "I came to you 11 months ago and said that I was going to get to this day having done everything I needed to do, leaving it all out on the field, and that's exactly what we've done."

The comments came after a lengthy day of campaigning for Barnette, in which she campaigned across the 4th District in Conshohocken, Norristown, Collegeville, Trappe, Boyertown, and elsewhere.

8:21 p.m.

Montgomery County announced that they plan to release preliminary election results at 8:30 p.m. Mail-in ballots were legally allowed to be counted starting at 8 p.m., when polls closed.

The Barnette campaign has filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County, alleging the county illegally "pre-canvassed" ballots for errors, allowing voters to correct mistakes. A hearing is scheduled in court for Wednesday morning. The campaign wants 1,200 votes discarded. MORE.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — As the polls closed in Pennsylvania on Election Night Tuesday, results in the race for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania's 4th District are beginning to trickle in. Incumbent Democrat, Rep. Madeleine Dean, was heavily favored to retain her seat in the strongly blue district despite a compelling campaign from challenging Republican businesswoman Kathy Barnette.

It's possible final results will not be known for days as county elections officials count the historic number of mail-in ballots. In Montgomery County alone, more than 278,00 mail-in ballots were sent out to voters. The counting process for ballots was not legally allowed to begin until polls closed at 8 p.m.

However, it's also possible the results for the 4th District in U.S. Congress, which covers almost all of Montgomery County and leans strongly to the left, will be known with some degree of confidence by the end of the night Tuesday.

Get up-to-the minute election updates. Subscribe to free News Alerts.

Even before the death of Walter Wallace Jr. in Philadelphia in October reignited long simmering tensions over racial injustice, issues like police reform and Black Lives Matter were at the front and center of the ideological disparities in this campaign.

"A mental health crisis should not be a death sentence," Dean, 61, said of Wallace's death. "His life mattered to his mother who was pleading to de-escalate the situation, to Walter’s wife who is expecting another child in days, to his children who will now be without their father — and to the community that grieves for him. He should be alive today."

Dean, who is in the Progressive Caucus in U.S. Congress but has voted in line with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time in her two years in office, is a strong advocate for police reform. She views the protests and unrest as a sign of systematic injustice.

"As public officials, we have to find the courage to alleviate the frustration and fear that often drives these demonstrations in the first place; we have to rethink and reshape policing in this country so that we can rebuild trust between police officers and the communities they serve," she said.

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

Barnette sees Dean as emblematic of not just the establishment, but of wealthy white leaders and activists who do not understand and therefore cannot represent black communities.

"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.

A native of the Abington area, Dean served as a Pennsylvania state representative in the 153rd district before being elected to her first term in U.S. Congress in the 2018 midterms. She was a part of the "blue wave" which saw several first time U.S. Congresswoman elected that year in southeastern Pennsylvania, including Mary Gay Scanlon and Chrissy Houlahan.

Barnette is a businesswoman and longtime conservative political commentator on the national stage, making frequent appearances on Fox News. She grew up in poverty on a pig farm in Alabama, and often cites her background and rise to success through hard work and self-determination as a classic example of the American dream.

Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District was newly formed when the state's district maps were redrawn a few years ago. This district now covers the 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.

For full coverage of the election in Pennsylvania, go here.