This Air Force veteran just announced she's challenging Sen. John Cornyn — and hoping to turn Texas blue
and
23 April 2019
On Tuesday, Air Force veteran MJ Hegar announced that she would seek the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. John Cornyn in Texas. Hegar is the first major Democratic candidate to jump in the race, but, as we’ll discuss, she may not be the last.
Hegar ran for the House last year against GOP Rep. John Carter in Texas’s 31st Congressional District and held the longtime incumbent to a 51-48 win in a seat that Trump had carried 54-41 two years before. This was the first time in decades that Democrats had made a serious effort to win this district, which is located in Austin’s northern suburbs, and the DCCC unsuccessfully tried to recruit her to run against Carter again in 2020.
One thing that impressed Democrats last cycle was Hegar’s very strong fundraising. She took in over $5 million for her 2018 campaign thanks in large part to a strong web video that stared the candidate talking about the challenges she overcame in life. That ad, titled “Doors,” featured Hegar describing growing up in an abusive household and becoming an Air Force pilot before she recounted how she saved her passengers after her medevac helicopter was shot down by the Taliban and sued the Pentagon over their now-defunct policy that prevented women from serving in ground combat positions.
Hegar kicked off her Senate campaign with a new web video that recounted her life and campaign (and featured a cameo from comedian Patton Oswalt). She concluded by hitting Cornyn, who dubbed himself “Big John” in a 2008 web ad that went viral for a very different reason, by declaring, “He calls himself ‘Big John,’ but he shrinks out of the way while Mitch McConnell gets in the way of anything actually getting done in our government.” She went on to call “Big John” out for “shrinking out of the way again while they try and take away protections for those of us with pre-existing health conditions.”