GOP Rep. Issa of California says he won’t seek re-election
WASHINGTON — Rep. Darrell Issa, whose partisan attacks on former President Barack Obama softened as his district trended toward the Democrats, said Wednesday that he would not seek re-election — the latest and one of the most prominent Republican retirements ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
Issa, who has represented a stretch of Southern California coast since 2001, won re-election in 2016 by just 1,600 votes out of more than 300,000 cast, while Democrat Hillary Clinton carried it by more than 7 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.
Issa had indicated that he was preparing to defend the seat, despite agreement by outside analysts and campaign operatives in both parties that it would have been one of the most competitive races in the country.
But on Wednesday, he called it quits.
“Throughout my service, I worked hard and never lost sight of the people our government is supposed to serve,” Issa said Wednesday. “Yet with the support of my family, I have decided that I will not seek re-election in California’s 49th District.”
A field of four Democrats had been competing to take on Issa, including Doug Applegate, a retired Marine colonel who served in Iraq and almost defeated him in 2016; a former Obama administration official; and a real-estate investor.
Issa had roughly $850,000 in his campaign coffers at the end of September, according to the most recent public filing available.
But his hard-edge partisanship had begun to wear on a district that is affluent and increasingly moderate.
Without Issa on the ballot, Democrats boasted Wednesday that they were well positioned to turn the seat blue.
“After passing a devastating tax scam and fighting to rip away health care from millions of families, California Republicans clearly see the writing on the wall and realize that their party and its priorities are toxic to their re-election chances in 2018,” said Drew Godinich, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the Republican campaign arm, predicted that a contentious Democratic primary would leave the eventual nominee “black and blue, and broke” and benefit the Republicans. A person familiar with the Republican effort to replace Issa said there was an expectation that several Republicans could get into the race, including Diane Harkey, a member of the California Board of Equalization, and Rocky Chavez, a member of the state Assembly.
Just last month, Issa was one of only a few Republicans who voted against the party’s tax plan, doing so, he said, out of concern that the bill’s changes to popular individual tax deductions would hurt his district.
Issa’s announcement closely followed that of another Southern California Republican, Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Democrats see both districts, and California more broadly, as crucial to winning back a majority in the House, and they have plans to invest heavily in races there.
In total, 31 Republicans are either retiring or leaving the House to seek another elected office, including several other senior Republican lawmakers. By contrast, 16 House Democrats are leaving this year.
Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to win control of the House.