April 23, 2019

MJ Hegar Is Running for Senate Against Big John Cornyn

After narrowly losing a congressional race, the Air Force veteran is aiming higher.

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The Air Force veteran behind one of the most viral videos of the 2018 campaign is back. MJ Hegar—who last year nearly knocked off a longtime GOP congressman in a heavily Republican district—announced Tuesday that she will challenge Texas Sen. John Cornyn in 2020.

Hegar burst onto the national scene last year with a video, titled “Doors,” that detailed her military service and her fight against the ban on women in ground combat jobs. She went on to narrowly lose her race against Republican incumbent John Carter in Texas’ 31st congressional district.

Cornyn—who Hegar now hopes to unseat in 2020—has his own experience with viral ads. In 2008, his campaign released a bizarre Wild West-style video called “Big John.”

Hegar referenced “Big John” in her own video announcing her Senate run. “He calls himself ‘Big John,'” she notes, “But he shrinks out of the way while Mitch McConnell gets in the way of anything actually getting done in our government.”

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FACT:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and the wealthy wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2020 demands.

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