Somehow I just knew it. (Sigh)

[merrily]

24. Saying she didn't win on her own is not a statement limited in time.

You did not specify you meant only her first election. I resent your implying that anything about my post was a pretense of any kind. It wasn't.

That said, no, it is not "just fact" that she won her first election solely because of her husband. That is your assessment,your opinion. She was a well educated, successful lawyer woman with good campaign skills. Yes, name recognition helps any candidate, but she could have blown it, as did Allison Lundergan Grimes. However, Nikki didn't blow it. That cannot be attributed to her husband.

U.S. House of Representatives
Elections

After Marty Meehan resigned in 2007 to serve as Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Tsongas ran in the special election. Tsongas defeated four other candidates to win the Democratic primary with 36% of the vote.[12] During her initial campaign Tsongas received endorsements from The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the Lowell Sun.[13][14] During the general election, former President Bill Clinton, who defeated her husband for the Democratic nomination in 1992, campaigned for her. At an event in Lowell Clinton remarked: "Congress will be a better place because she is there."[15] Tsongas won the special election against Republican Jim Ogonowski with 51% of the vote on October 17;[16] she became the only female Representative from Massachusetts, and fourth in the state's history.[17]

After running unopposed in 2008, in 2010 Tsongas faced Republican Jon Golnik, a small businessman and former Wall Street currency trader. During the campaign Tsongas attacked Golnik's history as a Vice President of AIG,[18] which Golnik called hypocritical, as she had stock in AIG and other large corporations.[19] Tsongas defeated Golnik with 52% of the vote.[20] Following redistricting after the 2010 census, Tsongas ran for re-election in the reconfigured Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district in 2012. In a rematch, she again defeated Golnick.[21]

I see no reason to conclude that all the above was attributable solely to her husband, let alone to declare it a fact.

In 2008, I would not let Republicans say that Hillary had never done anything on her own; and I was totally for Obama and therefore against her.