Gwen Graham

On May 2, 2017, Graham announced her intention to seek the Democratic Party nomination in the 2018 election to serve as governor of Florida.

Graham was ranked as the ninth most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School. On a scale of zero to one hundred, Graham scores eight as a lifetime rating by the conservative lobbying organization, American Conservative Union. She also scores a 0 on the 2016 Freedom Works ratings, which is associated with the Tea Party Movement.

In a YouTube video emailed to her fundraising list, Graham announced that she would not run for reelection to the House in 2016, denouncing a process that resulted in Tallahassee being split into "two partisan districts". She said that she was considering running for Governor of Florida in the 2018 election.

In 2015, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the congressional redistricting plan was a partisan gerrymander in violation of the Fair Districts Amendment. The ensuing court-ordered redistricting shifted most of Tallahassee, which had anchored the 2nd district and its predecessors for almost half a century, to the 5th district. Most of Graham's black constituents were drawn into the 5th as well. To make up for the loss in population, the 2nd was pushed to the south to take in territory from the heavily Republican 3rd and 11th districts. Graham now found herself in what was, on paper, one of the most Republican districts in the nation. Had it existed in 2012, Mitt Romney would have won it with 64 percent of the vote, which would have been his third-best total in the state. By comparison, Romney carried the old 2nd in 2012 with 52 percent of the vote.

In 2013, Graham announced her candidacy against incumbent Republican Congressman Steve Southerland in 2014. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced they would target the race and provide support to Graham. Graham was one of just two Democrats in the entire country to defeat an incumbent Republican that year, beating Southerland in the November election by more than 2,800 votes.

Had Graham sought a second term in the redrawn 2nd, she would have been running in a district that was more than 12 points more Republican than its predecessor, even though she would have retained 68 percent of her former territory. Her only other option for representing at least some of her current constituents would have been to run in the Democratic primary for the heavily Democratic, black-majority 5th District against that district's 24-year incumbent, Corrine Brown. Her home in Tallahassee was just outside the boundaries of the 5th district, but members of Congress only have to live in the state they wish to represent. Had Graham run in the 5th, however, she would have been running in a district that would have been more than 67 percent new to her.

In 2003, Graham joined her father's 2004 presidential campaign. When he dropped out of the race following a heart attack, Graham joined Howard Dean's presidential campaign, before ultimately helping coordinate John Kerry's unsuccessful campaign efforts in Florida.

Graham lives in Tallahassee. She married Mark Logan in 1985, and they have three children together. While raising her children, Graham worked for 13 years as a self-described "stay-at-home mom". Graham and Logan divorced, and she is now married to Stephen Hurm.

Graham received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1984 and her Juris Doctor from American University's Washington College of Law in 1988. After law school, she worked as an associate at the Andrews & Kurth law firm in Washington, D.C.

Graham was born in Miami Lakes, Florida, to Bob and Adele (née Khoury) Graham. She has lived in Tallahassee since 1978, when her father became Governor of Florida. Graham graduated from Leon High School in 1980. Her maternal grandfather is of Lebanese and Greek descent; her other grandparents are of Scots-Irish origin.

Gwendolyn Graham (born January 31, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Florida's 2nd congressional district from 2015 to 2017. She is the daughter of Bob Graham, the former United States Senator and Governor of Florida. A Democrat, she was a candidate in the Florida 2018 gubernatorial election.