Edwards is back on the ballot this year to again represent Maryland’s 4th Congressional District. It was recently redrawn to include less of Montgomery County and more of Prince George’s County, which has some of the highest concentrations of Black wealth in the country.

Edwards began her career as a Lockheed Martin contractor at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which is now fully in the redrawn district. After law school, she clerked for then-state lawmaker Albert Wynn, who went on to represent Maryland’s 4th District in the House until Edwards beat him in the 2008 primary. In the 1990s, Edwards co-founded the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which worked with then-Senator and now President Joe Biden to pass the Violence Against Women Act. 

After leaving Congress and going on her cross-country tour, Edwards said, she  “jumped right into roles at NBC and MSNBC, and for a little bit of time at Fox News” as a political commentator and wrote a column for The Washington Post. “I never transitioned out of being concerned about public policy and promoting progressive public policy,” she said

As Edwards sees it, she brings the experience of a longtime incumbent, along with the fresh perspective of spending the past five years outside the congressional bubble. 

Edwards would return to the House with seniority in terms of committee assignments. She previously served on the Science, Space and Technology and the Transportation and Infrastructure panels and said the purviews of both are critical to the district. Goddard is doing work on earth science, which is “the basis for which we make determinations about policies around climate change.” Plus, “in the Washington metropolitan area, our lives are governed by traffic, and by access to public transportation,” she said.

Edwards grew up in a military family, and they “criss-crossed the country, going from one installation to the next.” When her son was younger, a “really cheap vacation was throwing the tents in the back of the car and driving.” But her most recent trip — alone, after having served in Congress, and on a mission to understand the 2016 election — hit a bit differently.

“The vastness of the United States is something that people should see — the beauty, and the differences in regions and in cultures across the United States makes one reflect on the amazing experiment of this republic, and through all that vastness and difference, that we’re united under one flag,” Edwards said.

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