Whitmer’s little sister runs for US House seat
NY race is one targeted by Democrats for possible flip
Big Gretch has made her mark on big league politics. Now her little sister is going to give it a go.
On Tuesday, Liz Gereghty, the younger sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, announced her bid for the Democratic nomination in a much fought-over U.S. House seat in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Gereghty, a 50-year-old small business owner and local school board member in Westchester County north of New York City, said in her first campaign ad that she’s running for Congress at a time when “reproductive rights are getting rolled back in state after state and schools have to take money from books and spend it on bulletproof glass.”
She also said she’s running against the “radical Republican majority” in the House.
Asked about her sister’s announcement, Whitmer said, “I love my sister and it should come as no surprise that we are cut from the same cloth. All our lives, Liz has never shied away from tackling challenges with grit and treating people with grace.”
“I know she will give 100% and I will support her every step of the way,” Whitmer continued. “It’s not lost on me that we are seeing people who thought they would never run for office throw their hat in the ring. With our democracy on the line and rights and freedoms at risk, we need good, genuine people to answer that call to public service.”
Her sister has picked a race that is likely to be hotly contested.
Gereghty is running in New York’s 17th Congressional District, where Democrats were stung by a narrow loss in 2022. In that race, U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee tasked with winning House seats nationwide, was defeated by Republican state Assemblyman Mike Lawler.
In a nod to just how much Democrats want to win back voters in the Hudson Valley, President Joe Biden is headed to a Westchester County community college just over the 17th District line on Wednesday to talk about Republican demands to slash spending before agreeing to increase the nation’s debt limit and what it could do to the economy. It is his third visit to the area since October.
National Republican Congressional Committee Spokeswoman Savannah Viar responded to Gereghty’s announcement, saying, “We invite more Democrats to join in the race to the left as they have to answer for their lack of solutions to rising inflation, rising crime and a porous open border.”
Gereghty was raised in Michigan but has lived in New York for nearly three decades. The announcement Tuesday was reported by several media outlets, including the Washington Post. Last month, Politico reported she was seriously considering entering the race, which is a key pickup target for Democrats in 2024.