Democrats Attack Comstock (Already)

A group that works to elect Democrats to Congress issued a statement attacking state Del. Barbara Comstock within hours of her announcement Tuesday that she's making a bid for her former boss's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Comstock, a Republican, announced Tuesday morning that she will seek her party's nomination for the seat that will be left vacant by retiring U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf.

• More: Barbara Comstock Announces Congressional Bid

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a statement Tuesday afternoon linking Comstock to last year's government shutdown.

It also criticized her for voting against the 2013 transportation compromise, voting against a budget that included pay raises for teachers (though that vote was more due to Comstock's concerns about provisions for Medicaid expansion), and for supporting a bill that would require transvaginal ultrasounds before an abortion. Comstock has said that was "always meant to be an external ultrasound."

“Barbara Comstock’s record of prioritizing her own dysfunctional and extreme agenda instead of focusing on solving problems is exactly what Virginians hate about Congress and her divisive agenda would only make things worse for Virginia’s middle class families,” David Bergstein with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement. “Each candidate in this costly and divisive Republican primary will be forced to align themselves with the most dysfunctional fringe of their party that was responsible for the government shutdown.”

Comstock is no stranger to high-stakes politics.

Her November win was by just more than 400 votes. That race drew the attention of a progressive group tied to Howard Dean that tries to flip red districts to blue. And national gun control and gun rights groups targeted the race to the point where a forum in Great Falls had to be postponed.