Washington D.C. is about to get another dose of The Real World. Earlier this year MTV aired a season of its iconic reality series The Real World in the nation's capital, but now a former star of the show is heading there as a congressman.
In Tuesday's election, Sean Duffy, who was a housemate on The Real World's sixth season set in Boston, won the race in Wisconsin's seventh district. Duffy, a Republican, is now one of 435 strangers picked to work in the House to find out what happens when politicians stop being polite and start getting real.

Duffy was a district attorney before being elected to Congress. He is married to another Real World star, Rachel Campos from the third season set in San Francisco who he met when they were both competing on the Real World/Road Rules Challenge. They currently have five children.

While the rise of a former reality TV star to prestigious political office might seem strange at first, there's a long history of people in TV and film going into politics.

In Congress, Sean Duffy was preceded by Fred Grandy (Gopher from The Love Boat), Ben Jones (Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard) and, most recently, Al Franken (from Saturday Night Live).

In gubernatorial races, Predator and The Running Man co-stars Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger both became governors, as did the 40th president of the United States Ronald Reagan, who was an actor long before he became the symbolic leader of the Republican party.

Sean Duffy has big shoes to fill if he wants to achieve that level of political success, but getting elected to the House is a good start.

Could this mark the first step in a long road to our nation's first former reality star president? Maybe one day, if we're lucky, we can see Bachelor Jake Pavelka run for president with JWoww as his running mate.


(Image courtesy of Duffy for Congress)