Community activist Nancy Najarian sets sights on U.S. House seat

PanARMENIAN.Net - Community activist Nancy Najarian, a woman with deep ties to Massachusetts and its Armenian community, has set her sights on the U.S. House seat which will soon be vacant when its current occupant, veteran US Rep. Jim Moran Jr. (D-Va), retires in the fall, the Armenian Mirror-Spectator reports.

With Moran’s decision not to see another term, Najarian said, it seemed like the time was right to take a chance.

“As I am getting older, I am thinking of ways that I could make an impact in significant ways,” she said, by way of explaining why she would seek the House seat.

“This is a very, very safe Democratic seat. There is a good chance that there won’t be another chance like this,” she explained.

“I did some due diligence and talked” to various members of congress and friends in politics as well as her friends and family to make up her mind. “I decided to go for it,” she said.

She is kicking off her campaign this week, meeting with locals and making phone calls in this very short and intense campaign. The primary will take place on June 10, with the election in November.

“I need to become a very well supported candidate in an extremely short amount of time because it is a crowded race,” she said.

The first goal, she added, is to raise a lot of cash for the campaign to pay for ads “in the very expensive DC media market.”

Najarian was born in Boston, baptized in St. Stephen’s Armenian Church in Watertown and raised in Belmont.

She lives in northern Virginia with her husband, Michael Stimson, and children George, 13, and Serine, 7. She has been a Sunday school teacher at St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Washington and has participated in many events hosted both by the Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Committee of America.

“It would be pretty exciting to have someone with an Armenian last name in Congress in 2015,” Najarian noted.