Five mainstream media figures who ran for office as Democrats
Here are five other mainstream media figures who campaigned as Democrats for office, or at least made an attempt.
CNN political analyst John Avlon announced last year that he would leave the network to defeat Donald Trump and "his MAGA minions" by running for Congress as a Democrat in New York's First Congressional District in Long Island.
"Right now, our democracy is in danger. This election is not a drill," Avlon warned at the time.
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While he went on to capture the Democratic nomination, he lost the general election to Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., by more than 10 points.
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Avlon, the former editor of the liberal Daily Beast, was known for hosting a "Reality Check" segment on CNN that skewed heavily to the left.
Former CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera made an ill-fated Democratic primary challenge in 2020 to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in New York's 14th Congressional District.
Running as a more moderate candidate who opposed the Green New Deal and universal health care, she was routed by the far-left Ocasio-Cortez in the primary, getting just 18.2 percent of the vote.
Caruso-Cabrera spent more than 20 years with CNBC, serving as the financial network's chief financial correspondent as well as co-anchor of "Power Lunch." She also lost her bid for the Democratic nomination for New York comptroller in 2021.
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Ocasio-Cortez upset longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in 2018 before cruising to victory in the deep-blue district that November. She's now one of the leaders of the Democratic Party and is even rumored as a 2028 presidential candidate despite being only 35.
Longtime New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof briefly left the newspaper in 2021 after a 37-year run to run for Oregon governor on the Democratic ticket.
"I am confident we can do better as a state. I do think that's going to require vision and leadership and sending a different kind of leader to Salem," he told a local outlet at the time.
Unfortunately for him, his New York ties wound up haunting his candidacy.
Kristof was deemed ineligible early in 2022 after the state Supreme Court ruled he didn't meet Oregon's three-year residency retirement. Kristof had voted in New York in 2020, calling his ability to meet the requirement into question before the Supreme Court's decision ensured he wouldn't make the ballot.
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Kristof returned to the Times later in 2022 and has been there ever since.
Former ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd long claimed to be an independent, but the mask came off officially in 2021 when he briefly ran for Texas lieutenant governor as a Democrat.
Dowd, a straight, White, male Christian, wrote in 2018 that straight, White, male Christians should not pursue power in order to make space for minorities.
"I would humbly suggest that we as White male Christians take it upon ourselves to step back and give more people who don't look like us access to the levers of power," he wrote, adding, "As a White male Christian in America, I am part of a dwindling subset that has held the levers of power politically and economically in nearly every field for the entire history of the United States."
Dowd's run in an attempt to oust Republican Dan Patrick didn't last long. He dropped out after less than three months, saying enough diverse candidates had emerged on the Democratic side that he should step aside. Democrat Mike Collier ultimately lost the race by 10 points to Patrick.
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Dowd spent 13 years at ABC News as a political analyst before leaving in early 2021, where his "independent" claims were often criticized given his obvious preference for Democrats. Dowd, who served as chief strategist for George W. Bush's 2004 re-election, left the Republican Party during Bush's second term over his disillusionment with the GOP.
Dylan Ratigan, a former CNBC journalist who went on to host an eponymous show for MSNBC, mounted a run for the Democratic nomination in New York's 21st Congressional District in 2018.
Ratigan didn't come close, finishing far behind winner Tedra Cobb, who went on to lose the general election to Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.
Of course, going from a journalism background to a political campaign isn't solely the domain of Democrats.
Republican Kari Lake, who now serves in the Trump administration, was a news anchor in Phoenix before making unsuccessful runs in Arizona for governor and U.S. Senate in 2022 and 2024.Original article source: Five mainstream media figures who ran for office as Democrats
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When Tennessee's Capitol opened in 1859, the architects designed only one restroom — for men only — situated on the ground floor. According to legislative librarian Eddie Weeks, the toilet could only be 'flushed' when enough rainwater had been collected. 'The room was famously described as 'a stench in the nostrils of decency,'' Weeks said in an email. Today, Tennessee's Capitol has a female bathroom located between the Senate and House chambers. It's in a cramped hall under a staircase, sparking comparisons to Harry Potter's cupboard bedroom, and it contains just two stalls. The men also just have one bathroom on the same floor, but it has three urinals and three stalls. Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn, who was elected in 2023, said she wasn't aware of the disparity in facilities until contacted by The Associated Press. 'I've apparently accepted that waiting in line for a two-stall closet under the Senate balcony is just part of the job,' she said. 'I had to fight to get elected to a legislature that ranks dead last for female representation, and now I get to squeeze into a space that feels like it was designed by someone who thought women didn't exist — or at least didn't have bladders,' Behn said. The Maryland State House is the country's oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, operational since the late 1700s. Archivists say its bathroom facilities were initially intended for white men only because desegregation laws were still in place. Women's restrooms were added after 1922, but they were insufficient for the rising number of women elected to office. Delegate Pauline Menes complained about the issue so much that House Speaker Thomas Lowe appointed her chair of the 'Ladies Rest Room Committee,' and presented her with a fur covered toilet seat in front of her colleagues in 1972. She launched the women's caucus the following year. It wasn't until 2019 that House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman to secure the top position, ordered the addition of more women's restrooms along with a gender-neutral bathroom and a nursing room for mothers in the Lowe House Office Building. As more women were elected nationwide in the 20th century, some found creative workarounds. In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, female senators didn't get a dedicated restroom until 1988, when a facility was added in the chamber's cloakroom. There had previously been a single restroom in the senate lounge, and Sen. Shirley Marsh, who served for some 16 years, would ask a State Patrol trooper to guard the door while she used it, said Brandon Metzler, the Legislature's clerk. In Colorado, female House representatives and staff were so happy to have a restroom added in the chamber's hallway in 1987 that they hung a plaque to honor then-state Rep. Arie Taylor, the state's first Black woman legislator, who pushed for the facility. The plaque, now inside a women's bathroom in the Capitol, reads: 'Once here beneath the golden dome if nature made a call, we'd have to scramble from our seats and dash across the hall ... Then Arie took the mike once more to push an urge organic, no longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic.' The poem concludes: 'In mem'ry of you, Arie (may you never be forgot), from this day forth we'll call that room the Taylor Chamber Pot.' New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Liz Thomson recalled missing votes in the House during her first year in office in 2013 because there was no women's restroom in the chamber's lounge. An increase in female lawmakers — New Mexico elected the largest female majority Legislature in U.S. history in 2024 — helped raise awareness of the issue, she said. 'It seems kind of like fluff, but it really isn't,' she said. 'To me, it really talks about respect and inclusion.' The issue is not exclusive to statehouses. In the U.S. Capitol, the first restroom for congresswomen didn't open until 1962. While a facility was made available for female U.S. Senators in 1992, it wasn't until 2011 that the House chamber opened a bathroom to women lawmakers. Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to a congressional seat. That happened in 1916. Willner insists that knowing the Kentucky Capitol wasn't designed for women gives her extra impetus to stand up and make herself heard. 'This building was not designed for me,' she said. 'Well, guess what? I'm here.' Kruesi and Rush write for the Associated Press. AP writer Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md., contributed to this report.
