It’s the motherlode of Republican retirements: Texas Rep. Will Hurd, one of just three Republicans who represents a district that Hillary Clinton also carried, announced on Thursday night that he would not seek a fourth term in Congress next year.
That makes Hurd, the only black Republican in the House, the fifth GOP member of Congress to retire in the past week, and the tenth so far this year. Earlier on Thursday, Republicans fretted to Politico that further departures were imminent; Hurd did these worriers the favor of proving them right.
This accelerating exodus signals that GOP incumbents fear they have little chance of regaining the House next year, particularly with Donald Trump wreaking havoc at the top of the ballot. In Hurd’s case, though, he’s actually made it considerably more difficult for Republicans to actually take back the speaker’s gavel.
Hurd’s district, Texas’ 23rd, runs along the state’s southern border with Mexico and is heavily Latino. It favored Clinton by a 50-46 margin in 2016, making the incumbent one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the entire House. Last year, Hurd barely survived a challenge from Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, prevailing by just 926 votes, and in the Senate race, Democrat Beto O’Rourke beat Sen. Ted Cruz 52-47. Ortiz Jones is seeking a rematch, and Hurd was already at the very top of Democratic target lists.
Now, as an open seat, the 23rd District will be priority number one for Team Blue, if Republicans don’t simply decide to triage it altogether. But whether the GOP competes here or not, Hurd’s decision puts Republicans that much further away from picking up the 19 seats they need (or 20, if they lose a special election in North Carolina next month) to win back a majority in the House. And we still don’t know who’s going to retire next.
Let’s turn TX-23 blue! Donate to ActBlue’s Democratic Nominee Fund targeting this seat and a dozen other vulnerable Republican districts!
