Oth­er than the tim­ing, there was little sur­prise about Rep.Gwen Gra­ham’s an­nounce­ment Thursday morn­ing that she is con­sid­er­ing a run for gov­ernor in 2018 and won’t seek reelec­tion to the House this year. The lat­ter de­cision was made for her, while it seemed only a mat­ter of time be­fore an op­por­tun­ity for statewide of­fice proved too ap­peal­ing to pass up.

— Demo­crats are po­si­tioned to pick up three seats in Flor­ida this cycle, thanks to the mid-dec­ade, court-ordered re­dis­trict­ing. But the party will also lose at least one, Gra­ham’s 2nd Dis­trict, which went from a dis­trictMitt Rom­ney won with 52 per­cent in 2012 to one he would have car­ried with 65 per­cent. Had the dis­trict looked in 2014 the way it does now, it’s im­prob­able Gra­ham would have ever run and even less likely she would have de­feated Re­pub­lic­an Rep. Steve South­er­land.

— Gra­ham’s first day in Con­gress kicked off with dozens of well-wish­ers snaked through her corner of­fice and in­to the Long­worth hall­way, a much longer line than usu­al for a fresh­man in the minor­ity. Most re­ceived an un­ex­pec­ted hug from Gra­ham, who would be sworn in later that day, and were greeted by Gra­ham’s stuffed opos­sum, Petey, a cam­paign mas­cot. An hour later Gra­ham would cast her first vote as a mem­ber of Con­gress, one that was be­ing watched by na­tion­al Re­pub­lic­ans already tar­get­ing her be­fore the dis­trict be­came un­ten­able. By her side all morn­ing was Bob Gra­ham, the former gov­ernor and sen­at­or of Flor­ida and the con­gress­wo­man’s fath­er.

— Her vote for Jim Cooper of Ten­ness­ee for speak­er in­stead of Minor­ity Lead­er Nancy Pelosi was the first in a series of moves Gra­ham made over the fol­low­ing year to in­grain her po­s­i­tion as a mod­er­ate. “One hug at a time I built friend­ships with mem­bers on both sides of the aisle,” Gra­ham said in a video Thursday an­noun­cing her re­tire­ment and sub­sequent in­terest in a bid for gov­ernor. The “North Flor­ida Way,” she said, “is miss­ing in the state Cap­it­ol.”

Gra­ham’s de­cision has little ef­fect on Demo­crats’ suc­cess in House races this year. Her seat was already gone. But it’s wel­come news for the party as it seeks a comeback in state cap­it­als. Demo­crats now have a can­did­ate cap­able of com­pet­ing with former Rep. Adam Put­nam, a Re­pub­lic­an whose gubernat­ori­al in­terests have been clear since he left Con­gress in 2010 to run for state Ag­ri­cul­ture com­mis­sion­er.

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https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/622833/gwen-grahams-short-lived-congressional-career ($)