Val Demings for Congress

She came out of poverty — her mother was a maid, her father a janitor — to become the celebrated first female police chief of Orlando, a tourist mecca in central Florida that is home to diverse ethnic and racial groups. Now, at the behest of her supporters, she’s running an uphill battle against a Tea Party incumbent. It’s a struggle not unlike her old fight against violent crime in her district, a war she won.

Val Demings launched two new TV spots today in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, one positive, the other not so much.

The two 30-second campaign ads share the same core visuals: Demings walking down an office corridor with pro-Demings messages. She narrates both, and they both refer to her time as chief of the Orlando Police Department.

But in one, ominous images and headlines about her opponent, U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, dominate.

A candidate’s marriage is put to the test every campaign season, but it's made even harder if both people in a marriage are running for office.

That's the case for one Central Florida couple -- husband and wife and partners in fighting crime.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings and former Orlando police chief Val Demings squeeze in time together when they can while both are running for office -- Mr. Demings for re-election, and Mrs. Demings for Congress in the newly redrawn District 10 against Republican Rep. Dan Webster.

MC has the scoop on 11 lady pols to watch this fall—a double-amputee war hero, a Rhodes scholar, a gun-toting former police chief, and more. Raging liberal? Devout Tea Partyer? There's a new political hero here for everyone.