A former aide to Vice President Biden is running for a House seat currently occupied by Rep. Mick Mulvaney, one of the most conservative members of the South Carolina delegation.
Fran Person formally entered the race for South Carolina’s 5th district on Wednesday, which marked the deadline for candidates to file with the state election commission.
Person, 33, served as Biden’s personal aide for eight years, starting in 2006, when the current vice president was a Delaware senator. He departed Biden’s vice presidential office two years ago to take a job at the University of South Carolina, which he had attended on a football scholarship.
{mosads}Mulvaney has won reelection easily since defeating former Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat and House Budget Committee chairman, in 2010. Unseating Spratt, who had served in the House for nearly three decades, made Mulvaney the first Republican to represent the district in more than a century.
The district is now solidly Republican after its boundaries were redrawn following the 2010 census. Yet Person’s ties to Biden and the national Democratic establishment could make him a more viable challenger than recent elections have seen.
Biden recently signed onto a fundraising missive for Person, saying that “Fran knows what it takes to compete and win.”
Mulvaney has tried to paint Person as a carpetbagger who isn’t familiar with the district.
“He is an interesting choice: he is from Pennsylvania and he’s worked in the Obama Administration as an aide to Vice President Joe Biden for nearly six years. His resume screams Washington Insider,” Mulvaney said in a statement.
Yet he added: “I am taking this challenger and election seriously. Why? Because I take the future of this country very seriously.”
Mulvaney also faces a primary challenger, Ray Craig, on June 14. State Rep. John King will be Person’s opponent in the Democratic primary.
Person argues that Mulvaney, who is a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, is contributing to congressional gridlock.
“I don’t question his motive and it’s not that I think he’s a bad guy. But he fights with everybody — not just Democrats but with the leadership of his own party. So I question his ability to get anything done,” Person told the Greenville News.
South Carolina’s 5th district, incidentally, has a place in popular culture: Fans of the hit Netflix political drama “House of Cards” may recognize it as the one Frank Underwood represented while serving as House majority whip in the show’s first season.