Jeff Flake has just announced he will not run for reelection in the Senate next year:
AZ CENTRAL – Condemning the nastiness of Republican politics in the era of President Trump, Sen. Jeff Flake on Tuesday announced he will serve out the remainder of his term but will not seek re-election in 2018.
The bombshell, which Flake, R-Ariz., intended to detail Tuesday afternoon on the Senate floor, will further roil Republican hopes of keeping the party’s 52-seat Senate majority in the midterm elections of Trump’s first term, when the president’s party historically loses seats in Congress.
It also likely will upend the race for Flake’s seat.
Flake, one of the Senate’s more prominent critics of President Donald Trump, has been struggling in the polls.
He told The Arizona Republic ahead of his announcement that he has become convinced “there may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party.”
‘Here’s the bottom line …’
Flake said he has not “soured on the Senate” and loves the institution, but that as a traditional, libertarian-leaning conservative Republican he is out of step with today’s Trump-dominated GOP.
“This spell will pass, but not by next year,” Flake said.
Among Republican primary voters, there’s overwhelming support for Trump’s positions and “behavior,” Flake said, and one of their top concerns is whether a candidate is with the president or against him. While Flake said he is with Trump on some issues, on other issues he is not. And Trump definitely views him as a foe, having denounced Flake publicly and called him “toxic” on Twitter.
“Here’s the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I’m not willing to take, and that I can’t in good conscience take,” 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.”
This is great news! Flake has always been a flake on immigration. Now maybe we can get someone from Arizona who does believe in securing our border and deporting those who come here illegally.
As AZ Central goes on to note:
Kelli Ward, the former state senator from Lake Havasu City who lost her primary challenge last year against Sen. John McCain, has emerged this year as the top GOP alternative to Flake, but other names have been mentioned as possibilities: Arizona State Treasurer Jeff DeWit, former 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 Election Commission and are running.
You can bet Kelli Ward is ecstatic at this news. But you can believe the fight for this seat in Arizona is only going to heat up now. McConnell is going to want to ensure Flake is replaced by another RINO flake that will do his bidding, and that means millions of dollars are about to hit Arizona really hard.