Chelsea Clinton says she won't run for Nita Lowey's New York House seat in 2020

Chelsea Clinton ended speculation that she might run for Congress next year during an appearance on the talk show "The View" on Wednesday.

Clinton, 39, emerged as a possible candidate immediately following 30-year Rep. Nita Lowey's announcement on Thursday she wouldn't seek reelection in 2020.

She was considered a frontrunner in what is expected to be a crowded field, even though Clinton herself never said she was considering entering the race. On Wednesday, she directly addressed the rumors.

"I'm not considering running for Congresswoman Lowey's seat," Clinton said in response to a question from co-host Whoopi Goldberg.

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Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said she understood why people asked her about running.

"Someone has asked me some version of this question literally as long as I can remember," she said before recounting that she remembers being asked if she'd run for governor of Arkansas at age 3 or 4.

"I share that because I think it’s a question that shouldn’t just be asked of people whose last name is Clinton or Huntsman," she said, referring to co-host Abby Huntsman, the daughter of former Utah governor and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Hunstman.

"It’s a question we should be asking kids, like, 'Do you think about running for office one day?'" she said. "I hope that if the answer to that question is, 'Yes, I'm considering it,' that you'll really think about doing it and go to run for something."

She said she wasn't sure if she'd run for office one day, but "right now, the answer's no."

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Lowey, 82, is a longtime fixture in New York's 17th Congressional District, which includes Rockland County and part of Westchester County.

Clinton's parents have lived in the ritzy hamlet of Chappaqua in the Westchester part of the district since leaving the White House at the turn of the century.

Chelsea Clinton lives outside of the district in New York City, but the U.S. Constitution doesn't require a House member to live within the district he or she represents.

Lowey, chairwoman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is the first woman to head the committee. Since the district is reliably blue and overwhelmingly Democratic, her retirement has sparked interest from a number of local Democrats.

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But the Clinton name propelled her to the front of the pack without so much as a public statement from the would-be candidate, and drew comparisons to Lowey's own abandoned U.S. Senate race in 2000.

The congresswoman, a Harrison resident, had eyed a run for the Senate seat that year but stepped aside to allow Hillary Clinton a clear path to the nomination.

Hillary Clinton went on to win election against Republican Rick Lazio.

In 2006, she won reelection to the Senate against former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, now a Fox News host and friend of President Donald Trump.

Clinton left the Senate in 2009 after running unsuccessfully for president to become President Barack Obama's Secretary of State.

With Chelsea Clinton out of the running for the seat, there are two Democrats who are officially seeking the party nomination: David Buchwald, a state Assemblyman from White Plains who once interned for Lowey, and Mondaire Jones, who launched a primary challenge from the left in July well before Lowey's announcement she wouldn't seek reelection.

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Jones, 38, grew up in Spring Valley and attended Harvard Law School, raised $218,000 since launching his candidacy with the goal of becoming the first gay black man elected to Congress.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2-to-1 in the 17th district, according to state Board of Elections figures.

Registered voters without party affiliation also outnumber Republicans in the district, 110,000-103,000, according to state active voter numbers.

Follow Mark Lungariello on Facebook: @lungariello; and Twitter: @marklungariello.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Chelsea Clinton says she won't run for Nita Lowey's NY House seat