WASHINGTON — The first lady of Virginia, Dorothy McAuliffe, is weighing a run for Congress and may jump into a crowded field of Democrats to challenge a Republican incumbent, The Washington Post reports.
“I really am very seriously considering it,” McAuliffe said in a brief interview Tuesday with the paper.
She added that she enjoys serving as first lady.
“I currently have the best platform in the world,” she said. “I love my work being part of this administration.”
McAuliffe would run for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock in Virginia’s10th Congressional District next year.
The 10th District stretches from McLean inside the Capital Beltway to west to Winchester.
There are already at least four Democrats vying for the seat, the Post reports. They include state Sen. Jennifer Wexton, former Obama administration official Lindsey Davis Stover, Army veteran and Rhodes Scholar Dan Helmber and former Fairfax County teachers union president Kimberly Adams.
According to the Post, McAuliffe called several Democratic state senators as well as Virginia’s four Democratic congressmen to seek their input.
Virginia’s 10th Congressional District is the only one in the D.C. metro area held by a Republican.
Comstock, who was first elected in 2014, won re-election last year by beating her Democratic challenger LuAnn Bennett and outperforming President Donald Trump, who is unpopular in Comstock’s district.
While Comstock defeated Bennet 53 to 47 percent, Trump lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 10 points in the district.
“Affluent, well-educated districts like Virginia 10 really did not respond very well to Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
He said Comstock, “a proven winner in districts that are bluer than the national average,” will be no pushover in 2018 either.
If McAuliffe decides to run, she would be starting a campaign just as her husband steps aside. Governor Terry McAuliffe’s term is set to end on Jan. 13, 2018.
The governor will be on WTOP’s Ask the Governor program at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
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