Caitlyn Jenner is contemplating running for a Senate seat

Caitlyn Jenner told conservative talk radio host John Catsimatidis that she's looking into running for Senate. Photo / Getty Images

By Marissa Payne

Caitlyn Jenner went from the Olympics to reality television to . . . politics?

That's a strong possibility, according to the 1976 gold medal-winning decathlete, who told conservative talk radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday that she's looking into running for Senate.

"The political side of it has always been very intriguing to me," Jenner said. "Over the next six months or so, I've got to find out where I can do a better job. Can I do a better job from the outside, kind of working the perimeter of the political side, being open to talk to anybody? Or are you better off from the inside? We are in the process of determining that. Yeah, but I would look for a senatorial run."

Jenner, a lifelong Republican, did not offer any details regarding a possible timeline, but she could make a run for Democrat Dianne Feinstein's seat, which will be up for grabs next year. Feinstein, 84, has not said whether she plans to run for re election.

Jenner has become increasingly vocal about her political positions since coming out as transgender in 2015. She's openly embraced becoming a spokeswoman for the transgender community, which has led her to challenge some of the Republican Party's more socially conservative positions. Last year, for example, Jenner came out against a controversial measure in North Carolina that would require transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates.

"These anti-LGBT bills . . . actually make us less safe, not more safe," she wrote for People magazine in April 2016. "They open the door to abuse, aggressive and confrontational behavior in bathrooms, and encourage strangers to demand that women and girls prove that they are actually female in order to use the restroom. No one wants that."

The law, known as HB2, was eventually repealed.

Jenner, however, still sees problems with the Republican Party, which on Sunday, she blamed on "perception."

"[I]n the United States, the perception of the Democrats is that they're pro-equality, pro-LGBT and this and that. And the perception of the Republican Party is they're all about rich white guys trying to make money," she told Catsimatidis. "I would hope in the next generation - because it'll take a generation for this to change - that we can change the perception of the Republican Party and make it the party of equality."

Jenner insinuated that what's kept her in the Republican Party over the years is her strong belief in fiscal conservatism.

"I believe in little things like the Constitution; I believe in limited government," Jenner said. "I believe in the people of this country. Give the people of this country the freedom to go out into the workforce without tons and tons and tons of regulation and all the things that go on."

Jenner added: "If you could do the socially aware [stuff]. . . but be conservative economically, I mean, that's the way to go."