Leslie Mehta is the Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives’ 1st Congressional District. She is challenging longtime Republican incumbent Rob Wittman.
Speaking with the Gazette-Journal in Mathews during the annual Mathews Market Days festival, Mehta shared insights into her background, her political beliefs, and her decision to run for office.
A Woodland, North Carolina native, Mehta attended the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics as a youth and was subsequently accepted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her undergraduate degree in 1999, then went on to earn a law degree from the Howard University School of Law in 2002.
After graduation from law school, Mehta spent a few years as a litigator and civil rights attorney in Missouri. Then she and her husband, Tarun, who had attended law school with her, relocated to San Francisco for his law firm, and Mehta joined a civil rights firm there. When the couple’s first child,...