Rep. Donna Edwards Launches U.S. Senate Campaign

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Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards of Prince George’s County has become the second Democrat to announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Barbara Mikulski.

Edwards represents Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, comprising portions of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel Counties, including National Harbor, Suitland, Laurel, Severna Park, and Edgewater.

Her campaign video touts the development she fought for in her National Harbor neighborhood. Today the area supports more than 1,000 union jobs, has 400 new homes, improved roads, and access to the river was preserved, she says.

“I never learned the meaning of I can’t or I won’t or it’s not my responsibility,” Edwards says of the community effort.

“See, I’ve lived the American dream, a middle-class American dream, the one you have to work hard for just to hold on to, the one that’s slipping away for far too many Maryland families,” Edwards said in a video on her campaign website. “These are the people I fight for.”

Rep. Chris Van Hollen from Montgomery County was the first Democratic contender to publicly say he will seek the United States Senate seat now held by retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski.

If she wins the nomination and is elected to the Senate, WTOP reports Edwards would become the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate from Maryland.

No Republican has yet declared their intention to seek the Senate seat in heavily Democratic Maryland.

Edwards won a special election to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2008, becoming the first African American woman to represent Maryland in Congress.

Before taking public office, Edwards worked as a nonprofit public interest advocate and on NASA’s Spacelab project. In 1994, as co-founder and executive director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, she led the effort to pass the Violence Against Women Act that was signed into law by President Clinton.