Democratic ex-White House aide Maggie Goodlander is running for Congress in New Hampshire

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Democrat Maggie Goodlander, a former senior White House aide with deep political connections, announced on Thursday that she’s running for Congress in her home state of New Hampshire.

Goodlander, who is married to President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is the third Democrat to enter the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, a fellow Democrat who announced in March that she would not seek a seventh term in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. At least five Republicans also have announced their candidacies to represent the district, which stretches along the western half of the state and includes Concord and Nashua.

Goodlander, 37, grew up in Nashua and recently moved back there from Washington, where she worked in the Justice Department as a top antitrust official and as counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland before moving to the White House chief of staff’s office earlier this year. Previously, she served as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve and taught constitutional law at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College.

“Right wing judges, extreme politicians, big corporations all have too much power,” she said in a campaign announcement video released Thursday. “I’m ready to take these bullies on. That’s why I’m running for Congress.”

The video features Goodlander’s mother, Betty Tamposi, who lost the GOP primary for the seat in 1988.

Goodlander, who was born on Election Day in 1986 after her parents stopped to vote en route to the hospital, described her own efforts to start a family. She said that she lost a baby last year nearly 20 weeks into her pregnancy and that the experience strengthened her resolve to fight for reproductive rights.

The White House confirmed Thursday that Goodlander is no longer an employee there. Her husband, Sullivan, will abide by the federal law banning government employees from using their jobs for political purposes, said a White House official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and insisted on anonymity.

Also running in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary are Colin Van Ostern, a former member of the governor’s Executive Council, and state Sen. Becky Whitley. Republican candidates include Lily Tang Williams, who previously sought the GOP nomination, and Vikram Mansharamani, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.