Rep. Justin Amash, the Libertarian Michigan congressman who abandoned the Republican Party after calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, appeared to confirm reports Thursday that he would not seek reelection to Congress.
“I love representing our community in Congress. I always will,” Amash wrote on Twitter. “This is my choice, but I’m still going to miss it. Thank you for your trust.”
Earlier Thursday evening, the five-term lawmaker retweeted a Detroit News story reporting that Poppy Nelson, a top Amash aide, said he had halted his reelection campaign in February. “He hasn’t been campaigning for any office and doesn’t plan to seek the nomination for any office,” Nelson told the newspaper.
Amash, a Grand Rapids native who represents Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, came to national prominence in May 2019, when he became the first Republican member of Congress to declare that Trump had committed impeachable offenses.
Two months later, he revealed he was leaving the GOP to become an independent. Although Amash was a founding member of the arch-conservative House Freedom Caucus, he had emerged as a vocal critic of the president.
In April 2020, Amash said he was forming an exploratory committee for president as a Libertarian Party candidate. The announcement was met with bipartisan derision but encouraged by Trump, who tweeted that Amash “would make a wonderful candidate.”
Many Democrats feared an Amash White House run could siphon votes from their party’s presumptive nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. But Amash scuttled his prospective bid in May after concluding that “circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year.”
Amash’s apparent acknowledgment that he will not seek reelection in November opens up a Republican-leaning district that both parties were prepared to contest, though Democrats would have had better odds with Amash in the race.
Amash’s home state of Michigan was one of the key battlegrounds Trump flipped in 2016 to capture office. Recent polling, however, shows Biden leading Trump in those Midwestern swing states, Michigan included, as well as among voters nationwide.
Source: politico.com
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