Barbara Comstock

Barbara Jean Comstock is an American politician and attorney who served as the U.S. representative for Virginia's 10th congressional district from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 2010 to 2014.
Comstock first won election to her seat in the House of Delegates in 2009. In 2014, she was elected to succeed retiring Republican incumbent Frank Wolf in Congress. Comstock has worked in numerous positions for various government agencies, including as chief counsel of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, as director of public affairs at the Department of Justice and as a congressional staffer. In 2019, she joined the lobbying firm Baker Donelson as a senior advisor.

Early life and education

Comstock was born Barbara Jean Burns in Springfield, Massachusetts, on June 30, 1959. She is the daughter of Sally Ann Burns, a teacher, and John Ferguson Burns, national manager of polymer sales for Shell Chemicals. Comstock graduated from Westchester High School in Houston, Texas, in 1977. She graduated cum laude from Middlebury College in 1981. In college, Comstock spent a semester interning for Senator Ted Kennedy. While interning for Kennedy, Comstock, who was raised a Democrat, became a Republican. Years later, she recalled that she had long reckoned herself as a Reagan Democrat, and during her internship she found herself agreeing more with Orrin Hatch of Utah than with Kennedy. She then attended law school at Georgetown University, graduating with a Juris Doctor degree in 1986.

Career

After working as a lawyer in private practice, Comstock served from 1991 to 1995 as a senior aide to Congressman Frank Wolf. Comstock then served as chief investigative counsel and senior counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform from 1995 to 1999, working as one of Washington's most prominent anti-Clinton opposition researchers.
Comstock worked on behalf of the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. Her research team built massive stores of paper and electronic data, known as "The Gore File", that were a key source of information on the former vice president for GOP publicists and ad-makers. Comstock is credited with writing the Republican "playbook" defending Bush nominees such as John Ashcroft for U.S. Attorney General. Comstock later served as director of public affairs for the Justice Department from 2002 to 2003.
Comstock and Barbara Olson, the wife of United States Solicitor General Theodore Olson, formed a partnership known to Washington insiders as the "Two Barbaras". Barbara Olson died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
She was a founding partner and co-principal of the public relations firm Corallo Comstock.
Comstock joined law firm Blank Rome in 2004. Comstock assisted the defense teams of both Scooter Libby and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In 2005, Comstock was hired by Dan Glickman to lobby on behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America. In 2008, Comstock was a consultant on the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Comstock is a former co-chair of the executive committee of the Susan B. Anthony List.
Prior to running for office, she was registered as a lobbyist.

Virginia House of Delegates

In 2009, Comstock was elected to a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. She defeated incumbent Democrat Margaret Vanderhye by 316 votes. While in the state legislature, Comstock was involved in enacting legislation that increased the penalties for teen sex trafficking.
Comstock's public relations firm consulted for the Workforce Fairness Institute, a conservative group advocating on a variety of federal labor policy issues, from 2008 through 2012. According to a 2014 report by Politico, during her time in the Virginia House of Delegates, Comstock sponsored legislation that advanced WFI's overall public policy objectives. Legislation sponsored by Comstock called for union votes by secret ballot, prevented employers from giving employees' information to unions, and prohibited awarding contracts for state-funded construction projects exclusively to unionized firms. Comstock's campaign responded to the report by saying "Barbara Comstock disclosed her federal clients under Virginia law as required."
Comstock was re-elected to her seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in 2011 and 2013. When she won a seat in the U.S. Congress in 2014, she formally resigned her seat in the Virginia House of Delegates and a special election was called to replace her. She was succeeded by Democrat Kathleen Murphy, who had been her opponent in 2013.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2014

On January 7, 2014, Comstock announced her candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 10th District, following the announcement that incumbent Frank Wolf would retire at the end of the 113th Congress.
On April 26, 2014, Comstock won the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 10th District primary, defeating five other candidates and winning approximately 54% of the total vote.
Comstock and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ed Gillespie planned on attending a public meeting of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Tea Party in early August 2014. After rumors arose that the gathering could be infiltrated by Democrats, both candidates initially moved the meeting to a private location before opting to speak with the group by phone instead. This decision prompted a statement from David Sparkman, chairman of the Tea Party group, who said "I'm disappointed, I wanted to look these politicians in the eye and take their measure."
Comstock received the endorsements of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and both the Virginia Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors. On August 28, 2014, Comstock received the endorsement of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association. In 2012, the VAPBA had endorsed the Democratic challenger to Representative Frank Wolf in the same district.
Shortly before the 2014 election, Comstock's Democratic opponent, Fairfax County Supervisor John Foust, said that she had never had a "real job". "Although he claims he was referring to her jobs in partisan politics", stated the Weekly Standard, "Comstock's campaign attacked this as a sexist remark." Comstock herself called the remark "offensive and demeaning."
Comstock won the election on November 4, 2014, defeating Democrat John Foust with 56 percent of the vote.

2016

Comstock faced Democrat LuAnn Bennett, a real estate executive and ex-wife of former Virginia Congressman Jim Moran, in the 2016 election. Given the swing state status of Virginia in the 2016 presidential election, the race was expected to be one of the most heavily contested races in the country. Democratic strategist Ellen Qualls said the 10th District is "essentially the swingiest district in the swingiest state."
In early October, following the release of the Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape, Comstock called for Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race. She released a statement that in part said "This is disgusting, vile, and disqualifying. No woman should ever be subjected to this type of obscene behavior and it is unbecoming of anybody seeking high office. In light of these comments, Donald Trump should step aside and allow our party to replace him with Mike Pence or another appropriate nominee from the Republican Party. I cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump."
Comstock won re-election by a margin of 53–47%. In February 2015, some constituents called for Comstock to host an in-person town hall meeting rather than a "tele-town hall" conducted via phone.

2018

In early 2017, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Comstock and her 10th district seat one of their top targets in the 2018 midterm elections. Hillary Clinton had easily won the 10th in 2016 with 52% of the vote to Donald Trump's 42%.
By May 2017, five Democrats had announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination to run against Comstock. In July 2017, Republican Shak Hill, who ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2014, announced that he was preparing to mount a primary challenge against Comstock in 2018. Comstock won the June 12th primary easily. "Republicans in purple districts are leaving Congress in droves", reported The Washington Post in April 2018. "So why does Barbara Comstock want to stay?" Her answer was: "I'm healthy, my family's healthy, my kids are healthy, I love this job."
Comstock had been named as a potential candidate for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Tim Kaine in the 2018 election but decided not to run against him.
In the general election, she ran for re-election against Democratic State Senator Jennifer Wexton in what was considered one of the most competitive House races, given that Clinton and Governor Ralph Northam easily won her district in 2016 and 2017, respectively. After Democrats made significant gains in Northern Virginia in the 2017 elections, Comstock was the only elected Republican above the county level in much of the district. She was the last Republican to represent a significant part of the Washington metropolitan area in Congress. In the November 2018 general election, Comstock was defeated by Wexton, who took 56% of the vote to Comstock's 44%.