Watching other states’ elections involves a level of schadenfreude, that fancy German word for finding enjoyment in someone else’s misfortune.
“Pork roll sandwich controversy in NJ: What to know about beloved breakfast meat from Garden State”
“Dem shellacked by McConnell in 2020 mounts new Senate bid: ‘cowards in Washington are bowing to Donald Trump’”
“Which is Worser? (feat. Eileen Laubacher)”
I’m sharing these oddball headlines because they are about Naval Academy grads: Mikie Sherrill, Amy McGrath and Eileen Laubacher.
All are running for political office. They’re doing it 50 years after the first women were admitted to Annapolis and at a time when President Donald Trump is denigrating the role of women in the military.
It’s not only a generational shift. It feels like a response.
Sherrill is up first. The Democratic congresswoman is running against former state representative and MAGA Republican Jack Ciattarelli for governor of New Jersey in November. Her time at the academy has become a campaign flashpoint.
She graduated in 1994 but was one of 64 mids disciplined in one of the academy’s worst cheating scandals. She has said she followed the unwritten rule against snitching instead of the honor code, and her punishment was being prevented from walking across the stage at the commissioning ceremony.
Sherrill was commissioned as a Navy ensign and served 10 years as a helicopter pilot.
Then someone at the National Archives recently released her military records, including her Social Security number, in an “error.” It didn’t change the story, nor did Ciattarelli’s criticism that her son and daughter were both accepted at the academy.
That’s kind of how that works. The late U.S. Sen. John McCain followed his father into the academy, as his son followed him. Multiple sets of twins have been accepted to the academy.
The race is seen as an important bellwether for the midterms next year, so much so that Gov. Wes Moore will campaign with Sherrill in Newark on Sunday.
Sherrill seems likely to win, but it’s not a sure thing.
New Jersey leans Democratic, and Sherrill leads Ciattarelli in most polls. At a debate last week, they clashed over affordability, health care, the federal government shutdown and her academy years.
He attacked her for not being transparent about what happened; she called him a shill for drug companies responsible for the opioid crisis. He threatened to sue her for defamation the next day.
“Shame on you,” he said.
“Shame on you, sir,” she responded.
Oh, New Jersey.
The academy will also play a role in Kentucky, where McGrath is running to succeed former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He’s retiring, six years after beating her handily.
“I swore an oath to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” McGrath said in launching her bid. “Running for Senate is an extension of that oath. I’ll be a bulwark against authoritarianism and threats to our democracy.”
A former Marine combat pilot, McGrath graduated from Annapolis in 1997. She returned in 2022 when then-President Joe Biden removed Trump’s midnight appointments to the Board of Visitors and named her to the oversight panel.
She’s a consistent, sharp critic of Trump, and when he returned to the White House, he removed her from the board.
McGrath’s chances are worse than Sherrill’s. She’s running in a crowded Democratic primary in a heavily Republican state. She not only lost to McConnell but also an earlier bid for the House.
Yet Kentucky has a two-term Democratic governor in Andy Beshear, and the midterms are the best time to win against the party in power.
In Colorado, Laubacher could be the woman to finally rid America of Lauren Boebert, the clickbait conservative congresswoman famous for saying and doing ridiculous stuff.
Laubacher graduated from the academy in 1990 and served in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer. She retired from the Navy Reserves as a two-star admiral last year.
“I was 17 years old the first time I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” she said in July, when she announced her run. “But I have never felt as much of a threat to our democracy as I do right now.”
Boebert was pushed out of her safe district two years ago when political maps were redrawn but still won by five points. Laubacher is running in a crowded Democratic primary.
All three of these women are consistent critics of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attack on women in service.
He has removed several high-ranking women, including the first woman to serve as superintendent of the Naval Academy, ended the panel created to encourage women to enlist and generally dismisses women’s contributions in uniform.
When he chest-thumped a return to “male fitness” standards, Sherrill pointed out his disregard for the service of women.
“Eliminating the current highly rigorous standards for women in combat positions has nothing to do with increasing lethality and everything to do with forcing women out of the armed services,” she said.
Laubacher attacked the same language.
“Attacking those who serve because they don’t match Pete Hegseth’s narrative weakens our military and our nation,” she said.
In April, the Naval Academy Alumni Association will mark the 50th anniversary of women being admitted with a four-day celebration in Annapolis.
Many of the 7,500 women who have graduated since that first Induction Day are likely to take part.
It won’t be an overtly political event. Academy alumni are a diverse group that skews conservative, but distinguished grads are expected to attend.
In 2018, Sherrill and U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia became the first female grads elected to Congress.
There’s no guarantee that a graduate of a service academy will make a good governor or member of Congress.
The alumni association won’t make endorsements, and voters won’t base their decisions on Annapolis or West Point pedigrees.
Hopefully, these graduates will be at the alumni celebration as proof that women belong at the academy. They belong in uniform.
And they belong in the halls of power.
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