George Conway enters a crowded Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York

NEW YORK (AP) — George Conway, who was once married to a former adviser to the president before becoming a prominent anti-Trump voice, announced Tuesday that he is running for a U.S. House seat in New York City, testing whether he can turn his powerful social media following into votes in a crowded Democratic primary.

Conway — who worked for years in New York City as a lawyer but most recently lives in Bethesda, Maryland — said he was motivated to run for Congress after a conversation with a friend about her frustration with some Democrats’ decision to vote to end the government shutdown last year.

Conway didn’t want to challenge the Maryland congressman, Rep. Jamie Raskin, whom he said he liked, so the friend suggested he instead look at a Manhattan seat that would soon become vacant after Rep. Jerry Nadler retired.

Conway said he looked it up on Wikipedia and realized it was his old land.

“It was like it was an open seat. This is not crazy. I have to think about this,” he said in an interview.

He said he returned to Manhattan a few weeks ago.

Conway joins a stream of Democrats looking to seize Nadler’s seat. Candidates include Nadler’s stepson and state legislator Micah Lasher, school shooting survivor and advocate Cameron Caskey and Jack Schlossberg, grandson of John F. Kennedy.

In a campaign launch video, Conway, 62, presented himself as a veteran Trump opponent, whose extensive experience as a lawyer will allow him to continue his years-long battle against the president from Congress.

“This is not a normal time. I will not be a normal member of Congress,” he said.

Read more: Trump critic and former Republican George Conway is taking steps to run for Congress as a Democrat

Conway, a former Republican who helped found the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said he did not want to become a career politician but felt that “this is the moment when we need people who can fight Trump the way he needs to be fought.”

He supported Trump’s 2016 presidential run and was married to Kellyanne Conway, the pollster and strategist who became a senior presidential adviser in Trump’s first White House and was one of Trump’s fiercest defenders.

As Trump’s first term continued, George Conway began criticizing Trump with an aggressiveness that rivaled the staunch support his then-wife offered for the president, drawing unusual attention to the divergent political stances in their relationship.

At one point, Trump responded, calling George Conway a “loser and a husband from hell!”

The Conways announced their divorce in 2023, writing in a statement that their marriage had witnessed “many happy years.”

The district Conway hopes to represent is considered solidly Democratic, consisting of Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East and Upper West sides.

Nadler, 78, said last year that he would not run for re-election, with New York’s congressional delegation long calling for a generational change in Congress. His planned exit has spawned a flood of Democratic candidates to take his seat.