Why Will Jeff Flake Not Run Again

Condemning the nastiness of Republican politics in the era of President Donald Trump, Sen. Jeff Flake on Tuesday announced he will serve out the residuum of his term but will non seek re-election in 2018.

The bombshell, which Flake, R-Ariz., delivered Tuesday afternoon on the Senate floor, will further roil Republican hopes of keeping the political party'southward 52-seat Senate majority in the midterm elections of Trump's commencement term, when the president's party historically loses seats in Congress.

It also probable will upend the race for Chip's seat. Chip, who is among the Senate's more prominent critics of Trump, had been struggling in the polls.

He told The Arizona Republic ahead of his announcement that he had become convinced "there may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party."

MORE: Read the total text of Sen. Fleck's speech

'Here's the bottom line ...'

Scrap said he has not "soured on the Senate" and loves the institution, but that as a traditional, libertarian-leaning bourgeois Republican, he is out of footstep with today's Trump-dominated GOP.

"This spell will laissez passer, but not past adjacent year," Flake said.

Among Republican main voters, there'southward overwhelming support for Trump's positions and "behavior," Flake said, and ane of their top concerns is whether a candidate is with the president or confronting him. While he is with Trump on some bug, on other bug he is non, Flake said. And Trump definitely views Flake as a foe, having denounced him publicly and called him "toxic" on Twitter.

"Here's the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to go the Republican nomination is a path I'chiliad not willing to take, and that I can't in good conscience accept," Flake told The Republic in a telephone interview. "It would require me to believe in positions I don't hold on such issues as trade and immigration, and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone."

Every bit of Sept. 30, Flake'south campaign had $3.4 million on hand. He has continued to raise money — as recently as Thursday, onetime Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headlined a fundraiser for him in Arizona.

Flake said he had ruled out running as an independent rather than a Republican, saying he didn't think that was a viable strategy. He also said he has "no intention" of making a presidential run. Asked during a CNN interview whether he would entertain challenging Trump in 2020, Flake said, "I won't go there. That's a long time away."

Senate race opens up

Kelli Ward, the quondam state senator from Lake Havasu City who lost her main challenge concluding year against Sen. John McCain, has emerged this year as the top GOP alternative to Scrap.

But other names accept been mentioned every bit possibilities: Arizona Land Treasurer Jeff DeWit, sometime Arizona Republican Party Chairman Robert Graham and Arizona Board of Regents member Jay Heiler. Lesser-known Republicans Craig Brittain and Nicholas Tutora also have filed paperwork with the Federal Ballot Commission and are running.

Merely Flake'south exit is sure to entice bigger Arizona Republican names to take a fresh look at the GOP Senate race.

Steve Bannon, Trump's controversial quondam White House strategist, has embraced Ward as part of his national "open defection" against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the GOP establishment. Simply other Republicans accept warned that Ward is a weak candidate whose nomination would jeopardize GOP chances of holding Arizona's Senate seat.

"Arizona voters are the big winner in Jeff Bit's decision to not seek re-ballot," Ward said in a written statement. "They deserve a potent bourgeois in the U.Due south. Senate who supports President Trump and the 'America Showtime' calendar. Our campaign proudly offers an optimistic path forwards for Arizona and America."

The winner of the Aug. 28 Republican primary could face Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., considered the Democratic Senate principal forepart-runner.

"Information technology's been an honor to know and serve with Jeff," Sinema said in an emailed statement to The Commonwealth. "He is a man of integrity and a statesman who is true to his convictions – an Arizonan through and through. I wish he and (his married woman) Cheryl and their family the very best."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., praised Flake as "ane of the finest homo beings I've met in politics."

"He is moral, upright, and strong and he volition be missed by just about everybody in the Senate," Schumer said in a written statement.

Bannon, who is now executive chairman of Breitbart News, was quoted by the New York Times late last month as saying if Flake "doesn't get a better poll in the next 30 days, y'all're going to see him step down or the establishment is going to make him."

Bit said he felt no pressure from McConnell or establishment Republicans to quit the race and insisted that he's non bothered by the thought that Trump and Bannon will crow victory.

"They can say whatever they want to say," Fleck said.

Dramatic Senate speech

Flake publicly announced his intentions in a Senate floor voice communication that began effectually apex Arizona fourth dimension.

In his speech, Flake gave a baking critique of the "coarseness of our national dialogue" that has defined the Trump era, saying it should never exist accepted equally "the new normal."

"We must never regard every bit 'normal' the regular and casual undermining of our autonomous norms and ideals," Scrap said. "We must never meekly have the daily sundering of our land — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most ofttimes for the pettiest and about personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to exercise with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

"None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded equally normal," he said.

McConnell, the Senate majority leader, praised Fleck later on his floor speech.

"We regret to hear that our friend from Arizona volition conclude his Senate service at the finish of his six-year term," McConnell said. "And I'd like to say ... on behalf of myself and I think many of my colleagues, we've just witnessed a spoken communication from a very fine human being, a man who clearly brings loftier principles to the role every day and does what he believes is in the best interest of Arizona and the country."

Flake said he had alerted McCain most his decision earlier going public. And the senior senator spoke from the Senate flooring presently afterwards Flake concluded his remarks.

McCain called Flake "a man of integrity and honor and decency and commitment to not only Arizona, only the United states of America" and said it has been i of the "swell honors" of his life to serve with him.

"I have seen Jeff Flake stand up for what he believes in, knowing total well that there would be a political price to pay," McCain said.

Sen. Bob Aspersion, R-Tenn., an ally of Flake'south who also has been publicly fighting with Trump, announced Sept. 26 that he would not seek a third Senate term.

The White House characterized Flake's oral communication every bit trivial.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretarial assistant, said that the Fleck and Corker retirements are a reflection of Americans' public support of the president — and not these Republican senators. Information technology shows "the support is more backside the president than it is behind these two individuals," she said.

Sanders said the senators should be "doing their task instead of all this grandstanding." ... "Their loyalty should be to the American people. ... I hope we'll see that in their votes."

Rift formed with some in GOP

Fleck, whose poll numbers accept been tanking for at least a year, has publicly sparred with Trump since he emerged equally a presidential contender in 2015. Chip refused to endorse or vote for Trump and, during the campaign, was a frequent critic of Trump's tone, tenor and primal policy proposals, such equally a border wall.

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Flake further antagonized Trump and the president's supporters this summer by publishing a book, "Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Subversive Politics and a Return to Principle," that took the Republican Party to task for embracing protectionism, nationalism and other tenets of "Trumpism" at the expense of traditional Goldwater-Reagan GOP values.

Scrap, 54, was first elected to the Senate in 2012, winning a hard-fought general ballot against former Surgeon General Richard Carmona after defeating GOP primary opponent Wil Cardon.

Prior to that, Flake served six terms in the House starting in 2001.

Something of a political maverick, he routinely angered fellow Republicans by highlighting their spending of taxpayer money on parochial priorities.

While in the House, Scrap's office ridiculed questionable pork projects with a serial of "Egregious Earmark of the Week" news releases that usually included corny jokes and bad puns. In 2006, Flake was profiled past CBS' "threescore Minutes" in a flattering segment that compared him to the principled Jimmy Stewart grapheme in the archetype 1939 picture show "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

His reform efforts are credited with helping lead to an earmark moratorium on Capitol Hill. "If I'm remembered as the guy who killed earmarks, that'due south a slap-up thing," Fleck told The Democracy in 2012.

Flake took up other fights during his years on Capitol Colina.

Throughout his 17-twelvemonth political career, Flake has championed comprehensive immigration reform. Nonetheless, Congress hasn't come to terms on the event and Chip's bipartisan piece of work on legislation in the Business firm and Senate alienated many grass-roots conservative activists who consider a pathway to citizenship for immigrants without legal condition to be "amnesty."

Scrap was a free-trader who believed that the economic embargo against Cuba, which dated to President John F. Kennedy's administration and was function of the U.S. effort to finish dictator Fidel Castro's make of communism from spreading to other countries in the region, had long ago outlived its usefulness. Flake worked for years to ease travel restrictions to Cuba, normally siding with Democrats on the upshot and, early on in the 2000s, drawing the ire of President George Due west. Bush's administration and House GOP leaders. He constitute an ally on the Cuba result in President Barack Obama.

He also worked with Democrats on legislation aimed at strengthening protections for civil liberties.

In 2006, Flake helped cease powerful Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who was facing criminal prosecution at the fourth dimension, from always returning to his job as House majority leader.

A spooky day for Flake

In June, Bit was practicing with the congressional Republican baseball game team on a field in Virginia when a gunman opened fire on the grouping. Flake was unhurt, but Business firm Bulk Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., was seriously injured. The gunman was killed at the scene.

Bit told The Republic at the fourth dimension that amid the hail of bullets he had been unsure whether a congressional security detail at the ball field had likewise been killed.

"For a while, our security detail was firing, and I didn't know if it was friendly," he said. "I kept yelling, 'Are yous friendly? Are you friendly?' And he yelled back, 'Yes.' And I saw that it was Steve Scalise'southward detail. He happened to be at the exercise, thankfully, or we wouldn't take had a item. (Every bit a fellow member of Business firm GOP leadership) he's the only one who has one."

For many, the politically motivated shooting underscored the level of anger surrounding politics.

By withdrawing from his re-ballot race, Flake is breaking from Arizona's tradition of long-serving U.S. senators, including Democrat Carl Hayden and Republicans Barry Goldwater and McCain.

Only one other senator from Arizona served just a single six-year term: Republican Ralph Cameron, who was elected in 1920 and ousted by Hayden in the 1926 election.

TALKING POLITICS:Listen to our Arizona politics podcast, The Gaggle, on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher or Google Play.

Ronald J. Hansen and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez of The Republic and Eliza Collins, Erin Kelly and Heidi Przybyla of USA TODAY contributed to this story.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter, @dannowicki.

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Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/2017/10/24/republican-senator-jeff-flake-announces-not-running-senate-reelection-gop-primary-ward-trump/793952001/

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