Maggie Goodlander, Former White House Adviser, to Run for Congress in New Hampshire

Maggie Goodlander, a lawyer who has worked in the White House and the Justice Department under President Biden, announced on Thursday her candidacy for a congressional seat in New Hampshire’s Second District, where the Democratic incumbent, Representative Ann McLane Kuster, is retiring.

Ms. Goodlander, a Democrat, has served as a White House adviser, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, a foreign policy adviser in the Senate and an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve. She has also been a U.S. Supreme Court clerk. She is married to Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser.

“I’ve served in all three branches of government, and I know how to deliver for New Hampshire,” she said in announcing her candidacy.

At least two other candidates — Colin Van Ostern, a former member of the New Hampshire Executive Council, and Becky Whitley, a state senator — are also running in the Democratic primary. At least eight candidates — including Lily Tang Williams, who ran for the seat in 2022, and Vikram Mansharamani, who ran for Senate that same year — are running on the Republican side.

In an announcement video, Ms. Goodlander emphasized her family’s ties to the district, saying they have lived in Nashua for more than a century and noting that her mother, Betty Tamposi, served in the New Hampshire House.

Ms. Tamposi was featured heavily in the video, starting with her recollection that she stopped by a local elementary school to vote before giving birth to Ms. Goodlander on Election Day, and continuing with her quoting a politician who, when she ran against him in a Republican congressional primary, said, “A woman’s place is in the home, not in the House.”

“She didn’t win, but