On Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn defended the halls of Congress as a violent mob of right-wing extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol Building and staged an insurrection.
Now—almost exactly three years after the attack—Dunn is launching a campaign to walk those same halls as a congressman.
“In this moment where we are right now, I don’t think it's an exaggeration to say we are one election away from the extinction of democracy as we know it,” Dunn told The Daily Beast on Thursday in advance of his campaign announcement.
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“I believe that my first-hand experience physically fighting to preserve democracy and stop what happened on January 6, gives me the nod to be what the people of the Maryland 3rd District need,” he said.
Harry Dunn waves as he arrives at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty ImagesDunn—who announced his resignation from the Capitol Police force after 15 years last month—has become a leading advocate for accountability in the wake of the insurrection. He widely shared his harrowing account witnessing rioters beat and bloody police, telling the House’s Jan. 6 Committee that a crowd hurled the N-word at him as he tried to direct them away from his fellow officers who were being treated for chemical contamination.
Dunn’s truth-telling mission has brought him to testify at the Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy trial, regularly appear all over the media, and pen a book titled Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th that was released last fall.
Last year, President Joe Biden awarded Dunn the Presidential Citizens Medal for protecting the Capitol.
A congressional run is Dunn’s latest step to fulfill his “duty to defend democracy.” He’s gunning for a seat currently held by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) nestled between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Sarbanes is leaving office next term, and Dunn is entering an already crowded Democratic primary with seven other contenders—several of whom serve in the Maryland General Assembly.
Dunn’s platform is anchored by his experience during and activism since the insurrection. While he did not name specific policies related to Jan. 6 that he plans to pursue if elected, Dunn would remain a persistent detractor and constant reminder of the insurrection in the House.
For starters, he’s dead-set on holding former President Donald Trump responsible for Jan. 6 and calling out hypocrisy from the former president’s GOP acolytes in Congress.
“They are aware and they do know that President Trump was responsible for that,” Dunn said of Republicans like House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who initially criticized Trump for his actions on Jan. 6 and has since embraced the former president.
“I just think the backtracking shows the type of people that we—the Democrats—are fighting against on the other side,” Dunn said.
Despite Dunn’s palpable frustration with the GOP’s defense and denial of what happened on Jan. 6, he said he’s prepared to work with Republicans.
“I have spent the last 15 years of my life defending members of Congress who I do not agree with,” Dunn said.
Dunn is far from the only Democrat keeping Jan. 6 front-and-center in voter’s minds. Biden’s re-election campaign launch video opens with a clip of the Capitol under siege. Democrats around the country are targeting GOP lawmakers who have abetted the effort to overturn the 2020 election or connected to the riot.
But Dunn’s campaign will test how much weight his Jan. 6-centric campaign will carry in a firmly blue district. Maryland’s 3rd District has a D+10 rating per the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index, so Democrats are well positioned to hold the seat.
Recent polling shows that Jan. 6 remains top-of-mind for Democrats. Eighty-six percent of Dems surveyed in a December Washington Post and University of Maryland poll said that the attack “should never be forgotten.”
Asked if Democrats have made a big enough deal about Jan. 6, Dunn was emphatic. “I don't think you can make a big enough deal about it,” he said.
“It should be a big deal. It should be a bigger deal. It should be the biggest deal,” he continued.
The former police officer already has a relationship with some of Capitol Hill’s leading advocates for Jan. 6 accountability. The House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, (D-MD) has called Dunn a friend, and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) publicly defended Dunn from right-wing attacks. (In 2022 former Fox New host Tucker Carlson blasted Dunn as an “angry left-wing political activist").
Dunn was raised in Maryland but lives in Montgomery County, outside the 3rd District boundaries. He told The Daily Beast he looks forward to moving into the district if elected.
On his agenda, Dunn wants to tackle infrastructure in the district. (“No way that it should take an hour to drive 15 miles from the District to Baltimore,” he said.)
Dunn also mentioned addressing gun reform, codifying Roe v. Wade, and diving into mental health policy while in office. Dunn has battled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after Jan. 6 and has called for bolstered mental health resources within the Capitol Police.
But in order to advance legislation in any of those areas, Dunn reiterated that American democracy must remain intact.
“It’s very important that we preserve our democracy so we can debate lower health-care costs for the citizens of Maryland, so we can update commonsense gun reform,” he said.
