2 Members of Congress Were Rumored to Be Having an Affair. He May Be the Next Speaker. She's Out...

Two Members of Congress Were Rumored to Be Having an Affair. He May Be the Next Speaker. She’s Out of a Job.

The whispers appeared to drive Rep. Kevin McCarthy out of the GOP leadership race three years ago. He’s back in it, but Renee Ellmers is out of elected office altogether.

MARGARET CARLSON
04.26.18 5:09 AM ET

It’s a testament to male dominance in Congress that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is the leading candidate to lead House Republicans for the second time in three years, even after his first effort imploded. And that former Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, rumored to be having an affair with McCarthy that was evidently a big reason for that implosion, is gone from Washington with hardly a trace.

Both were married, both brushed off the accusation, but that didn’t stop the rumor being spread by a major Republican donor, written about in influential blogs like RedState.com, and whispered about in the cloakroom. The difference in how the two people — who did not return calls for this article — caught up in the same rumor fared afterward is a parable of how Congress works, and doesn’t, in the #MeToo era.

Ellmers was once a rising star with a career as an ICU nurse married to a surgeon in Dunn, North Carolina. She didn’t like what she saw of Obamacare and decided to run for Congress. A happy conservative, telegenic, quick on her feet, a people person, she upset a seven-term incumbent in 2010. She won reelection easily until 2016, when suddenly she wasn’t conservative enough any longer. She was primaried by several candidates in a redrawn district. One opponent ran an ad alluding to the alleged affair that stated, “I'm not running against Renee because she's been unfaithful to her husband; I'm running against Renee because she's been unfaithful to her constituents.”

Ellmers isn’t running for anything these days, much less for Speaker. She lost the 2016 Second District primary by 30 points to George Holding, the representative from the 13th favored by good ole boys in Washington although he didn’t even live in the district.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/two-members-of-congress-were-rumored-to-be-having-an-affair-he-may-be-the-next-speaker-shes-out-of-a-job?ref=home