On Campaign Trail, Armed With Self-Assurance
Pr. George's Congressional Candidate Holds Her Own

By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2008

For one ingredient behind Donna F. Edwards's improbable victory over eight-term U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn in February's Democratic primary, look to the football field.

The nonprofit group executive from Prince George's County played the game with the boys when she was a tomboyish youngster. She laughed when asked recently whether she was any good at it, as she prepared to lob a pass during a muggy picnic in Glenarden, where she was campaigning ahead of Tuesday's special election to replace Wynn.

"I'm always good," she said, with only a hint of self-deprecating sarcasm.

It is this gritty competitive spirit that Edwards brought to her dogged campaign against Wynn, a self-confidence that led her as a young lawyer to found a national movement to end domestic violence and as a neighborhood activist to take on one of the region's most prominent developers.

For her supporters, many of whom are wildly optimistic that the 49-year-old represents a new face of progressive politics, her self-assurance is often borne out.

That was true on the football front in Glenarden. After shaking hands and addressing the crowd briefly, Edwards approached a group of young boys lined up on a playing field. "I want to see who can catch this pass, okay?" she called out before sending the football spiraling and soaring over the heads of the younger children to the older boys in the back.

"She got arm!" whistled a man watching the pass.

Her 22-point victory against Wynn in the Feb. 12 primary was so resounding that it has been hard for many residents in the 4th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Prince George's and Montgomery counties, to remember that the win formally earned her only the Democratic nomination.

She is routinely introduced at public events as the district's congresswoman. Within days of the election, her campaign office started receiving calls from constituents seeking the help of their congressional representative. In most cases, callers were referred to Wynn's office because Edwards lacked the staff or the interagency influence to solve the problems.

Wynn resigned May 31, setting up the special election between Edwards and Peter James (R). The winner of Tuesday's election will probably be sworn in within days and will serve out the remainder of Wynn's term. Edwards and James will face each other again in November, with the victor taking office in January.

In the months since her primary win, Edwards has been finishing up work at the Arca Foundation, a nonprofit charity where she has served as executive director since 2000. In that role, she has helped distribute grants to progressive causes and amassed a network of liberal activists who helped propel her run against Wynn.

She also has been touring her district, trying to ensure that voters get to know her better.

At small community events, voters tend to learn as much about her son, Jared, and her mother, Mary Edwards, as they do about the nominee.

They find out that Donna Edwards raised Jared alone after a difficult divorce that briefly left her homeless and living with her son in a room at her mother's home. During that time, Edwards went without health care for almost two years and didn't own a car for a while. She would take young Jared to day care on her bike and then hop the bus from her Fort Washington home to get to the District.

"When I drive on the highway now, and I see women with their strollers out there and their young children waiting on the side of the highway, still waiting on the side of the highway, years later, without any shelter, I think, 'That was me,' " she said. "I just think surely we must be able to make an investment in mass transportation that actually works for people."

A hospital bill of almost $6,000 dating to her days without insurance also figures in many of her pitches for universal health care. She said she spent years as a young public interest lawyer paying off the debt and received insurance only when she went to work for Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy nonprofit organization founded by Ralph Nader.

Voters also learn that Jared had a learning disability, which required Edwards to fight for his education. They learn that Jared, 19, is home from Drew University and doesn't go out on weekends because he cannot afford the price of gas.

Her mother, 68, lives in Kettering and is a ubiquitous presence on the campaign trail, talking up her daughter at Starbucks and the grocery store. When Donna Edwards fell just shy of defeating Wynn in her first run against the incumbent in 2006, Mary Edwards spent hours camped out in the warehouse of the Prince George's County Board of Elections, watching officials count disputed ballots.

Donna Edwards was the second of six children. Her father was in the Air Force, which meant moving every 18 months. Edwards said she learned from her mother the ability to adapt to new situations.

"There's not a room I go in where I feel like a stranger," she said.

Edwards spent several high school years in New Mexico, where she was elected class president and attended the civics education program Girls State. There, she worked on the campaign of a fellow teen camper named Janet Napolitano, who sought election as governor of the camp. Napolitano is now the governor of Arizona.

"None of this is a surprise to me or anyone in Donna's family," said Montgomery County Council member Valerie Ervin (D-Silver Spring), whose father was an Air Force buddy of Edwards's father and who attended high school in New Mexico at the same time. "She was always involved in politics from a really early age. And she has always been very driven and very ambitious."

The Edwards children were expected to hold their own in political discussions that started at the dinner table and extended to family fishing trips and cookouts, Ervin said.

"If you're part of Donna's family, you learn how to debate," she said.

After high school, Edwards went to Wake Forest University, one of six black women in her class. She worked for a time at Lockheed Martin before heading to Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire.

Edwards said she knew she could use her degree to snag a high-paying job with a law firm, particularly after her divorce, but chose another path.

"I have a passion for working in the nonprofit sector, and I wasn't willing to give it up," she said.

A succession of posts with District-based organizations, including the National Network to End Domestic Violence, where she served as executive director, earned cable television exposure and high-powered friends.

But until she challenged Wynn in 2006, arguing that he had strayed from Democratic principles on issues such as the war in Iraq, bankruptcy protections for consumers and energy policy, she was best known in Prince George's for waging a five-year battle against the massive National Harbor project.

Leading a group of local residents that called itself the Campaign to Reinvest in Oxon Hill, she sued the developer in hopes of making the project a more integral part of Prince George's. The suit was dropped in 2004, in part because of concessions wrested by Edwards in one-on-one negotiations with developer Milton V. Peterson. They included a riverfront trail and more residential units at the hotel-and-retail center.

National Harbor attorney Andre Gingles recalled that Edwards was one of several activists who always did their homework.

"She was among the most informed that we worked with," he said. "We always felt like we had to be responsive to her because she had real questions. They weren't made up."

If elected Tuesday, Edwards will gain seniority over freshmen elected in November, which could help her land a desirable committee assignment.

Edwards has not been shy about how she would like to use the advantage. At a recent meeting of the board of the African American Democratic Club of Montgomery County, she urged members to contact Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to express support for her bid to take over the seat Wynn vacated on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A seat on the powerful committee would be a coup for a freshman.

"I know it's rarely done, but it's done," she told the group. "And it's important for me to put a marker down; that's what I want."