Scoop: Combat veteran launches congressional run in bid to flip longtime Democrat-held seat red

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and Iraq War veteran Jennifer-Ruth Green says she’s “ready to finish the mission” as she launches a second Republican congressional bid in northwest Indiana for a seat long held by Democrats.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Green said in a campaign launch video shared first with Fox News Digital on Tuesday, as she jumped into the U.S. House race in Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, which is represented by three-term Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan.

Green, who came within five points of defeating Mrvan in the 2022 midterm elections, says her rematch in Indiana could be crucial in deciding if the GOP keeps control of its fragile House majority next year.

“When we fire Frank Mrvan and take back northwest Indiana for the first time since 1928, Republicans will keep the House and stop radical Democrats from impeaching President Trump,” Green emphasized in her video.

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And in an interview with Fox News Digital, she added, “I firmly believe that the control of the House might just come down to Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, and I want to be on the team to make sure we can have a credible agenda to support President Trump.”

Green launched her campaign the day after Republican Gov. Mike Braun called state lawmakers back for a special legislative session to redraw the GOP-dominated state’s congressional districts.

It’s part of a broad Republican effort orchestrated by President Donald Trump and his political team to pad the GOP House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats. Democrats need a pickup of just three seats to win back control of the House.

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Trump is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections. Democrats, fighting back, aim to blunt the GOP effort by pushing redistricting in blue-leaning states.

Republicans currently control seven of Indiana’s nine congressional districts, and any new map passed by the state’s GOP super majority in the legislature would likely shift the 1st Congressional District from blue-leaning to a red-leaning seat.

“We believe Indiana’s First District… will become much more Republican,” a memo from the Green campaign states.

And Green, in her Fox News Digital interview, argued, “I am in support of redistricting. I really believe that it’s time for us to fight fire with fire, and we’ve seen how Democrats around the country have taken this opportunity … in their states to gerrymander.

Green, following in the footsteps of her father and grandfather, joined the Air Force. A 2005 Air Force Academy graduate, she began her military career in aviation before transitioning to serve as a special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and deploying to Baghdad during the Iraq War.

She’s currently a lieutenant colonel in the Indiana Air National Guard and “as Indiana’s first secretary of public safety, I supported our first responders and helped the Trump administration remove dangerous illegal immigrants from our streets.”

She also founded a faith-based nonprofit to “help at-risk youth through aerospace training.”

Green, who outraised Mrvan in her 2022 campaign, is the only major Republican candidate to jump into the 2026 race. Pointing to her fundraising prowess, her campaign memo touts that Green “is the only candidate Republicans can put forward in this race to raise the money needed to win a hard-fought battle for this seat.”

“When we fire Frank Mrvan and take back northwest Indiana for the first time since 1928, Republicans will keep the House,” Green said in her campaign video.

And she pledged, if elected to Congress, to “stand shoulder to shoulder with our president to rebuild American manufacturing for middle class jobs, fight for bigger paychecks and lower prices, support our farmers and rural communities, secure the border and deport violent, illegal immigrants, back the blue, and defend the right to life and the Second Amendment.”

Green, in her Fox News Digital interview, praised Trump, saying, “I believe that he’s doing a great job. He is taking care of our country, leading it in the right direction.”

Asked if she would like the president’s help on the campaign trail, she said, “I look forward to bringing him out to northwest Indiana if he would come.”

By mfnnews