Campaigns by former athletes to run for office have potential upsides for both political parties and for the would-be candidates. Retired athletes also tend to know lots of other people of means and influence, which can help in the all-important area of fundraising, says David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati who teaches a class on sports and politics. Three years later, state troopers hauled her out of a state Senate hearing after she confronted the businessman and New Jersey Democratic macher George Norcross over corporate tax breaks, in a moment that, The New York Times wrote, “laid bare the deepening fault lines within the Democratic Party in one of America’s bluest states.”