CONGRESS: A Big Night For Incumbents – And A Political Comeback

John Matthews
WMAL.com

ASHBURN — (WMAL) The DC area’s most hotly-contested Congressional race went to the incumbent Tuesday .

Republican Barbara Comstock, who engaged in a big-dollar TV ad-fueled campaign against local developer LuAnn Bennett, was elected to a second term representing Virginia’s Tenth Congressional District, beating Bennett, 53 – 46 percent.

“I’m happy we were able to survive another onslaught of them wasting $10 million,” on the tv ads, Comstock told WMAL, adding she is happy to be done with the mudslinging.

Bennett spent much of the campaign trying to tie Comstock to Donald Trump , despite Comstock’s efforts to distance herself from the GOP Presidential nominee.

Elsewhere, local House incumbents feasted upon the advantage of name recognition and were all returned to office, including Virginia 11th District Democrat Gerry Connolly, who ran unopposed.

In Maryland, the open U.S. Senate race won handily by Democrat Chris Van Hollen over Republican State Delegate Kathy Szeliga created two vacancies in the House. Van Hollen’s seat in the 8th District was filled by Democrat State Sen. Jamie Raskin, who defeated Republican Dan Cox. Meanwhile, the 4th District seat, which was vacated by Donna Edwards when she made her unsuccessful primary bid for the Senate against Van Hollen, was won by former Lt. Governor Anthony Brown over Republican George McDermott.

Brown’s victory amounted to a political comeback following his embarrassing loss to Republican Larry Hogan in the Governor’s race in 2014.

“My father said there were going to be some days when you’re going to get knocked down,” Brown said during his victory speech Tuesday night. “But he said the true test was whether you get up and get back to it. And if you believe in what you do, you get up and you get back to it.”