Born 1974 in Aigaleo to a police officer and a stay-at-home mother,[1] whom Dourou later described as conservative yet open-minded, she was raised in Western Athens working-class suburb Egaleo.

[4] On 26 March 2014, well ahead of the local elections in May, she ceded her parliamentary seat[5] to her party's first runner-up Eleni Avlonitou in order to fully concentrate on campaigning for regional governor of Attica.

[8] Running a door-to-door campaign on an electoral platform called "Power of Life" (Greek: Δύναμη Ζωής), she challenged incumbent Giannis Sgouros who ran for the social-liberal "Social Values" party, and won the first round.

[2] She was criticized by Minister of Administrative Reform Kyriakos Mitsotakis for supporting 19 mayors who refused to hand over municipal workers' files for evaluation.

[10] Dourou is in favour of the separation of church and state and took a non-religious oath when she was sworn in as governor, eliciting criticism from conservative and right-wing milieus.