Chesco GOP Rep. Ryan Costello pulls out of race
WEST CHESTER » Ending weeks of speculation in local and national political circles, U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6 of West Goshen, confirmed to the Daily Local News Sunday that he will not be a candidate for another term in Congress.
“It was a combination of factors,” Costello said of his startling decision, citing personal and political considerations that weighed heavily on him, as well as a distaste for the prospects of waging a bitter and costly campaign to hold the office he has occupied since 2015. “It has been a deeply personal decision and evaluation.
“But those who love me agree and those who I love agree with it,” a seemingly resigned and subdued Costello said in a one-onone interview in West Chester. “I will not be running for re-election.”
The congressman said his decision to leave the race was not a matter of fear that he would be defeated by the presumptive Democratic nominee for the newly drawn 6th Congressional District, Easttown businesswoman Chrissy Houlahan. Despite the new district boundaries that many experts now believe lean toward a Democratic victory in November, the overall voter registration figures are in Costello’s favor and internal polling suggests that he could still eke out a win.
Rather, Costello cited the “political environment” for his decision.
“Whether it’s (President Trump’s rumored affair with porn start) Stormy Daniels, or passing an omnibus spending bill that the president threatens to veto after promising to sign, it’s very difficult to move forward in a constructive way today,” Costello contended.
“Plus I think there is a lot of hate out there, from the left especially, and it’s a very angry environment,” he said. “It is a sad commentary on the state of our culture and political environment. It’s not me doing it, but I am the one who gets the brunt of it.”
Costello’s decision to put a halt to his re-election campaign leaves open a set of questions that he said he was not prepared to answer at this point. Chief among them is whether his name would still appear on the ballot in the May primary. He said that step has yet to be determined, but would be discussed this week in consultation with party officials.
If it does, and he is able to win the nomination against his GOP challenger, Chadds Ford tax attorney Gregory Michael McCauley, that would allow him to wait until prior to the November election to officially drop out. Then, the Chester County Republican Committee and the state GOP could name a replacement candidate without having to submit to a special election.
If, however, Costello asks the state secretary of state to remove his name from the ballot ahead of the May primary, McCauley would be the only candidate on the ballot and would presumably be the party’s standard bearer against Houlahan in November, barring a successful GOP write-in campaign. Already a long shot to defeat Costello in May, McCauley would face an uphill battle of enormous proportions against Houlahan, who has raised more than $1 million and secured the endorsement of Democratic leaders across the state and nation.
Costello, an East Vincent native and former township supervisor, county recorder of deeds, and county commissioner, was elected to the 6th District seat in November 2014 after the incumbent congressman, Jim Gerlach, announced that he was not running for re-election. Costello won his first term by beating Reading doctor Manan Trivedi by 13 percent. In 2016, he beat Democratic challenger Mike Parrish by an even greater margin of 15 percent, even as Democratic presidential challenger Hillary Clinton won the district.
His prospects changed radically over the past six months. Houlahan, a military veteran and successful businesswoman, announced that she would run for the office and immediately began raising money that neither of Costello’s previous challengers had access to. Many political pundits believe a series of scandals involving sexual harassment of women and general dissatisfaction with Trump’s administration improved Democratic changes across the board for 2018.
Then, in January the state Supreme Court struck down the state’s congressional district map that had been adopted in 2011 as an unconstitutional form of gerrymandering. The court gave the state Legislature and Gov. Wolf a chance to redraw a new map, but when the parties could not reach an agreement, the court in February drew up its own map, including a new Sixth District.
Where previously the district included central and northern Chester County, as well as parts of Montgomery, Berks and Lebanon counties, now it included the entirety of Chester County and a small portion of Berks. In political terms, it went from “+1 Hillary” to “+9 Hillary.” Earlier this month, a federal court in Harrisburg and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in lawsuits by Republicans, including Costello, to put a hold on the new maps.
Costello, in the interview Sunday about his decision, said he remains deeply troubled by the court’s decision, which he said previously was a corrupt process meant to target him.
“I was surprised and am still absolutely shocked that the Supreme Court got away with what it did,” he said. “Their objective was to take me out politically, and that’s what they did.”
Since then, pundits and media speculators have been asking whether Costello would stay in a race that he seemed poised to struggle in and possibly lose. But he continued to raise campaign funds and last Tuesday delivered nominating petitions to the state to have his name placed on the ballot.
But Costello confirmed on Sunday in the interview that he had been discussing the possibility of suspending his campaign or dropping out with both party leaders and family members, and came to the his final decision last week. He noted that there had been threats made against his family over time, and that the tenor of discourse against him on social and other media had been unusually vitriolic.
“It’s not the kind of environment I want to raise my kids in,” he said. “Some of the stuff that gets said about me, some of the things that people do, I find extremely distasteful. Now is the time to take the appropriate look at the environment and say, even upon winning in November I think the way things are going to be baked into the cake through 2020, and I am not interested in putting my family through that.”
He said he does not have any immediate plans for what he will do going forward, except that he will reenter the private sector for period of time.
“It’s been an honor to do this job,” he said. “In some respects my ego says to run. But when I look at what is the right decision for those who rely on me and the state of our body politic, I am convinced that no matter how bi-partisan and open and transparent I am, there is so much anger out there that it doesn’t matter.”