Rep. King to retire, highlighting GOP’s suburban challenges

WASHINGTON — Fourteen-term GOP Rep. Peter King of New York said Monday he would not seek reelection next year, highlighting a political and institutional challenge for Republicans as they seek to halt a precipitous erosion of voter support in the suburbs as their party retreats from the political center under President Donald Trump.

King is the fifth House member of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership to announce retirement this year and the 20th Republican to retire overall. His decision immediately put his South Shore Long Island seat near the top of Democratic target lists at a time when suburban voters continue to trend away from Republicans.

Last week’s off-year elections saw Democrats gain ground in state and local races in key suburban battlegrounds such as Bucks County, Pa., greater Indianapolis and the Hampton Roads region of Virginia — places that reliably elected Republicans for decades until Trump’s 2016 election. Since then, college-educated women in particular have abandoned Republican candidates who have been unable to separate themselves from Trump and the hard-line conservative agenda he has pursued.

“We’re having a crisis in suburban districts,” said Sarah Chamberlain, president and chief executive of the Main Street Partnership. “We have to talk to suburban women, like myself, better. We have to be addressing their concerns and we just aren’t.”