Chelsea Clinton’s mother-in-law is no comeback kid. On Tuesday, former Rep. Marjorie Margolies (D-PA) lost the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 13th district to state Rep. Brendan Boyle in her attempt to go back to Congress nearly 20 after she was ousted for saving President Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Her son, Marc, is now married to Chelsea Clinton, and Hillary and Bill Clinton campaigned and attended fundraisers for her. Margolies’ closing ad even featured Bill Clinton. But Margolies started the campaign acting like she was the “inevitable” nominee much like Hillary Clinton did during her 2008 run in the Democratic presidential primary, and she may have been blindsided when things started to sour.
The Associated Press called the race for Boyle after he had a 30-point lead with nearly 60% of the precincts reporting. With 99.3% of the votes reported, Margolies lost by a vote count of 16,506 to Boyle’s 24,476.
Then known as Rep. Margolies-Mezvinsky–she has since divorced from her husband, former Rep. Mark Mezvinsky (D-IA)–Margolies was the deciding vote for President Bill Clinton’s budget in 1993, which arguably saved Clinton’s presidency but doomed her chances of staying in Congress. Margolies-Mezvinsky got elected then by promising voters she would not raise taxes, and she did exactly that by voting for Clinton’s budget that raised taxes on the middle class. Republicans chanted, “Bye, Bye Marjorie” as she was casting her decisive vote, and voters in her district removed her the next year. Four years later, Clinton’s USAID awarded her charity with a $600,000 grant. During the the 2014 campaign, Margolies came under fire for potentially enriching herself through her taxpayer-funded charity.
The seat in the heavily Democratic district opened up when Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) ran for her party’s gubernatorial nomination, which she lost on Tuesday.