Barbara Comstock will announce a congressional bid early next week, a source close to her campaign tells National Review Online. She’ll enter the race for retiring Republican representative Frank Wolf’s seat in Northern Virginia. It’s expected to be hotly contested, as Democrats see it as one of their rare good chances to pick up a House seat in 2014. And since it’s in the D.C. media market, the contest will be very pricey.
Comstock, who was just reelected to a third term in the Virginia House of Delegates, was the only Republican in the body to win a race inside the Beltway last November. Her district stretches from McLean, at the border of Washington, D.C., to Loudoun County.
Comstock was a formidable fundraiser in 2013, raising more than $1.3 million for her race — more than twice what her Democratic challenger pulled. She has a lengthy résumé in national politics: She’s worked for Wolf, the Justice Department, George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign, and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
Republican state senator Dick Black may also run for the seat, and has formed an exploratory committee. He tells NRO that he will probably decide within ten days, and that he’s leaning toward entering.
“I think things are looking very encouraging at this point,” he says.
Artur Davis, a former Alabama congressman who now lives in Virginia, has said he won’t run for the seat. State senator Jill Holtzman Vogel also tells National Review Online she won’t run.