Former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who endured the mayhem of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, discovered something about his fellow Marylanders that disappointed him during his unsuccessful campaign last year for a seat in the U.S. House.
“A large portion of Maryland residents hadn’t heard of Jan. 6, or simply didn’t care that much about it,” he told Capitol News Service in a recent interview.
“There are a lot of people even here in Maryland that don’t give a damn if the president sends a mob to attack, to overthrow the election,” Dunn said. Roughly 1 million of the 4 million eligible voters in Maryland did not vote in the 2024 presidential election, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections.
“I’m a local kid”
Dunn was born on Andrews Air Force Base, now Joint Base Andrews, and raised just miles away. A graduate of Surrattsville High School, he earned a partial football scholarship from the University of Maryland and later played for James Madison University, where he graduated in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in health science. In 2008, he joined the U.S. Capitol Police.
For 15 years, Dunn guarded Congress. On Jan. 6th, 2021, everything changed.
Besides being caught up in the chaos of the day, Dunn also was called racial slurs and attacked for being Black. “No one had ever, ever called me a n—– while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn said in July 2021, in testimony before the House Select Committee on January 6.
Dunn said his decision to run for office was inspired by his public service. “I was an officer, but I mean, ultimately, what it came down to is: I’m a public servant, and I’ve always been that, and I feel like it was just an extension of my public service, running for office,” Dunn told CNS.
Announcing his candidacy in January 2024 left Dunn with little time to campaign before the May primary election. However, his political action committee raised over $5.7 million, according to Federal Election Commission records.
He then campaigned for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in swing states, he said, warning about the dangers to democracy of electing Donald Trump a second time. He also turned his political action committee into Dunn’s Democracy Defenders, which funds Democratic candidates for U.S. House and Senate races.
“Campaigning, doing events, doing whatever I could do to get the point across about how dangerous and real this threat is,” he said.
Dunn remains upfront about his feelings for President Trump and his supporters. “Donald sent a mob to kill me and my coworkers, if you support him after that, there will NEVER be any common ground between us and i hate you as much as i hate him,” he wrote on his Bluesky account in April.
Dunn also believes that Article 14, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, known as the Insurrection Clause, should have barred Trump from running for a second term. “The definition of an insurrection is a violent uprising against an authority or the government,” Dunn said. “That is exactly what happened on January 6th.”
Dunn was not alone. Three states, Colorado, Maine and Illinois, unsuccessfully attempted to remove Trump from the ballot based on his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
All three states ruled Trump ineligible for the primary ballot, citing the Insurrection Clause. State courts struck down their ruling. A New Mexico judge removed Couy Griffin from office as Otero County commissioner in 2022 after a group of local citizens used the Insurrection Clause to challenge his eligibility after he was convicted of trespassing on Capitol grounds during the attacks.
More than four years after an event that he says changed his life, Dunn continues to share his experiences and views with a wide audience. “I was always… going to keep talking.”
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