Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, widow of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, has announced that she is running to succeed him, adding to a crowded field of candidates, according to a press release. The 48-year-old Rockeymoore Cummings announced her candidacy yesterday to serve out the remainder of her late husband’s term representing Maryland’s 7th Congressional District.
The late Cummings was chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which was playing a key role in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. He was re-elected to office in 2018, winning 76.4 percent of the vote. Voters first elected him to office in 1996, when he succeeded former U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume who resigned from Congress to become national president of the NAACP.
Rockeymoore Cummings told MSNBC that she and her husband had discussed the possibility of her succeeding him as his health declined. Elijah Cummings died October 17, 2019. Rockeymoore Cummings, who resigned as chair of Maryland Democratic Party to run for her husband’s old seat, will possibly face as many as six other candidates in the primary.
A date for the primary has not been scheduled. Rockeymoore Cummings also faces a serious health issue. She told the Baltimore Sun that she will undergo on Friday a preventive double mastectomy because breast cancer has claimed the lives of too many of the women in her family.
