If the deaths of two congressional-level Republicans after contracting coronavirus are grim markers of the virus’s toll, their two widows campaigning to take their place may be symbols of perseverance and renewal after the pandemic.
And as their special campaigns kick into gear during Women’s History Month, Julia Letlow and Susan Wright carry on a long tradition of widows stepping up to fill their husbands’ places in Congress, paving the way for women in politics while enduring crisis.
Letlow is running for Louisana’s 5th Congressional District seat after her 41-year-old husband Luke Letlow, who was a representative-elect for the seat, died in December before being sworn-in. In Texas, Wright is running for the 6th Congressional District seat after her husband, second-term Rep. Ron Wright, who was 67 and was long battling cancer, died on Feb. 7.
Each of them made the decision on whether to run for office and then announce their campaigns just weeks after their husband’s deaths.
“Emotionally, it was pretty tough,” Wright told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “This was nothing that I had ever thought about doing.”
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Wright, a longtime party activist who is in her fifth year on the Texas state executive committee and worked as district director for two previous 6th District congressmen, said she was helping to find good candidates to campaign for Congress when she was encouraged by other elected officials and party activists to run. “I know the district,” she said.
“When he passed away, politics doesn’t stop. Life doesn’t stop. My world changed dramatically, but the reality is, the rest of the world has to keep going,” Wright said.
With her district knowledge and that she does “share the same values and baseline ideals” as her late husband, Wright could be a natural fit for the seat. Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas endorsed her for the seat.
In neighboring Louisiana, Letlow described her own grappling with the decision to launch a campaign while grieving.
“Luke would always tell me, ‘Julia, if the opportunity ever presents itself for you to run for office, you have the qualifications. You have the passion to serve. I want you to seek that out if the opportunity ever presents itself,’” Letlow said in a recent Good Morning America interview.
Letlow is a mother of two young children, has a Ph.D. in communication, and a professional background as a higher education executive — all elements of a winning candidate profile. She’s scored endorsements from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican House Whip Steve Scalise.
Despite the establishment support, Letlow faces 12 other candidates in the March 20 special election — mostly Republicans, including two candidates who ran against her husband in the 2020 primary.
In the May 1 Texas special election, Wright’s race for the not-as-reliably-Republican seat is even more crowded, with 23 candidates in the race, including 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Other prominent Republicans running are state Rep. Jake Ellzey, former Trump administration official Brian Harrison, and former professional wrestler Dan Rodimer.
If they succeed, Letlow and Wright would be far from the first women to run to take their husbands’ place in Congress after their death. The phenomenon is so common that there is a term for it: widow’s succession.
There have been 39 women in the House and eight women in the Senate who were either appointed or elected to their late husbands’ seats, starting in 1923.
For decades, widow’s succession was “largely the way women got into Congress,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics.
“The party was looking for someone to hold the seat, and the widow became a route that parties looked to hold on to those seats in a moment of uncertainty and unrest,” Walsh said.
Some of the women simply served one or two terms or filled out the rest of their late husband’s term. But others went on to have long and successful political careers, like Maine Republican congresswoman and then Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who in 1964 was the first woman to run for president at a major party convention.
Today’s Congress has a record number of women, accounting for about 27% of the members, and it is much rarer for women who took their husband’s place.
Rep. Doris Matsui, a California Democrat, is the only current member of Congress who assumed her late husband’s seat after his death in 2005. In 2015, Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell became the first woman to succeed her husband in a congressional seat while he was still alive. (No widower has taken the place of a wife who died in Congress.)
Though there is a heavy emotional toll, there are a lot of campaign advantages for the widows.
“It’s a very easy way of stepping forward as the candidate. There is automatic name recognition,” Walsh said. Many have deep political knowledge because “they were their husbands’ partner in their political careers.” Plus, “it may be an opponent’s worst nightmare to have to run against the widow because there is the sympathy vote.”
There’s also an automatic ideological brand. It’s safe to assume that the widows of late congressmen will share their husbands’ views. A 2014 Washington Post analysis of voting records found that widows who succeed their husbands do tend to be ideologically similar to their husbands.
Letlow and Wright have both made that argument and say that their campaigns are a way to honor their late husbands.
“For the past year, I’ve been lock-step with Luke,” Letlow said. “I feel equipped and ready to carry that torch forward.”
“You could expect me to at least be along those same lines” as her husband, Wright said. “Strong Second Amendment supporters, very pro-life, strong borders, strong national defense, very supportive of our law enforcement efforts and individual freedom.”
Widow succession, though, is not necessarily a golden ticket to Congress. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the widow of the late Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, in 2020 lost a crowded Democratic primary race ahead of a special election to fill the seat. Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who had previously held the seat from 1987 to 1996, replaced Cummings.
The women also aim to keep their individuality and prove their worthiness for the job in their own right.
“What I’ve told people on the campaign trail is: I’m not him,” Wright said. One issue she cares about bringing to attention: “Human trafficking and sex trafficking is pervasive, and Texas is a hub for that.”
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“I find it a little fun that the campaign is in full swing during Women’s History Month,” Wright said. She recalled being the only woman in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas.
Both Wright and Letlow would be the first women to represent their districts in Congress, and Letlow would be the first Republican woman member of the Louisiana congressional delegation.
Even so, Wright said that she is not sure she a feminist trailblazer. “But if I am, I’ll happily do it,” Wright said. “The Republican Party has always been a place where strong women were welcome.”
