Former Miss America Cara Mund plans to run for Congress

Cara Mund, a former Miss America who gained attention by criticizing the organization near the end of her reign in 2018, plans to run for Congress in North Dakota as an independent. “On the 57th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I am proud to announce that I am seeking to be North Dakota’s first female in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Mund said in a Facebook post on Saturday. She did not detail her political platform in her Facebook announcement.

Incumbent Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who is seeking a second term, and Democrat Mark Haugen of Bismarck, a University of Mary graduate adviser who has long worked as a paramedic.

Mund announced her candidacy Saturday and said she would start gathering the 1,000 signatures she needs to get on the ballot, the Bismarck Tribune reported. She would need to turn in 1,000 petitions signed by North Dakota residents to Secretary of State Al Jaeger by Sept. 6 to make the November ballot as an independent candidate. The seat has been held by Republicans since 2011, and Armstrong won reelection by a landslide margin in 2020.

Miss America 2018 Cara Mund poses for photographers on the 86th Floor Observation Deck of the Empire State Building in New York, Sept. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

“I am so proud to be a North Dakotan,” Mund said in a statement. “It would be an honor and a privilege to represent the people of our state in Congress. I am ready to get to work and look forward to putting North Dakotans first.”

Mund was crowned Miss North Dakota in 2017 and became the state’s first Miss America titleholder later that year. She said in 2018 that she had been bullied and silenced by leaders within the Miss America organization. The head of the organization’s board later resigned.

Prior to her crowning as Miss America, Mund served as an intern for Republican U.S. Sen. John Hoeven.

Mund has said that her time as Miss America inspired her to be involved in public service. The Bismarck native graduated from Harvard Law School in May. She called her law school graduation a “launching pad for what I hope to accomplish next.”

Source – AP