(CNN) — Actress and Democrat Ashley Judd, who was openly considering challenging Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell for his Kentucky seat in 2014, announced Wednesday she was “currently unable” to run for public office.
“After serious and thorough contemplation, I realize that my responsibilities & energy at this time need to be focused on my family,” Judd wrote on Twitter.
The announcement comes after months of speculation that Judd – an actress with family roots in Kentucky — would jump into politics. The rumors sparked heavy backlash from Republicans, including McConnell, who began producing videos attacking Judd.
One featured footage of Judd representing the neighboring state Tennessee, a state where she’s lived for years, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. She’s also seen saying in the video that San Francisco is her “American city home.”
While she partly grew up in the state and graduated from University of Kentucky, Judd has lived elsewhere as an adult, including California and Scotland. She was married to Scottish race car driver Dario Franchitti, but they announced they were getting a divorce earlier this year.
Judd actively campaigned for Obama during the 2008 and 2012 elections and has been known for advocating for poverty reduction, immigration rights, environmental issues, public health, and human rights issues. She also graduated from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with a master’s degree in 2010.
McConnell, now in his fifth term, wasn’t the only one to preemptively go after Judd. American Crossroads, the conservative super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove, spent $10,000 on a web ad earlier this month, also hitting Judd for her declared love of Tennessee, where she owns property and where she spent some time as a child.
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