In a blow to GOP, Sen. Roy Blunt set to retire
WASHINGTON – A fifth Republican senator decided to pass up a 2022 reelection bid, complicating GOP efforts to reclaim control of the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who turned 71 in January, announced his retirement via video Monday, citing his decades of public service as a factor in his decision.
“After 14 general election victories – three to county office, seven to the United States House of Representatives and four statewide elections – I won’t be a candidate for reelection to the United States Senate next year,” Blunt said.
In declining to run in 2022, Blunt joins retiring Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Richard Shelby of Alabama and Richard Burr of North Carolina.
The party is waiting on decisions by other GOP senators, such as Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
Blunt and other retiring Republicans avoid a congressional election in which ex-President Donald Trump plans a major role, forcing GOP candidates to take a stand on his divisive presidency.
Republican strategist Liz Mair said there’s a “trend” of mainstream Republicans “walking away from an environment in which traditional conservatism has been little rewarded, but jumping on crazy trains has been.”
The result, she said, could be a series of elections “that pit diehard liberals against a nuttier, and often deeply unconservative and ethically compromised, breed of Republican.”
In last month’s Senate impeachment trial, Toomey and Burr were among the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on a charge that he incited the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. They would probably have been targeted by Trump-backed primary opponents, had they run.
Blunt, a two-term senator, has been generally supportive of Trump. He did not give a particular reason for his retirement, beyond his longevity.
Missouri is a largely Republican state, but Democrats often are competitive. Blunt won reelection in 2016, holding off Democrat Jason Kander with 49.2% of the vote to 46.4%.
On Twitter, Kander said after Blunt’s announcement that he would not for the Senate next year, but “I’ll campaign for the Dem nominee!”
The U.S. Senate is split 50-50 between the Democratic and Republican caucuses. Vice President Kamala Harris provides the tiebreaking vote that gives Democrats control.
Republicans faced an uphill battle before the retirements. They have more positions to defend, holding 20 of the 34 Senate seats up for election in 2022.
Sabato’s Cystal Ball, a newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, downgraded the Missouri Senate race from “safe Republican” to “likely Republican,” still favoring the eventual GOP candidate.
“We’ll see if Democrats can get a good recruit here,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of the newsletter.
Coleman said Blunt’s retirement creates the possibility of a “messy” Republican primary involving Trump, his supporters and anti-Trump campaigners.
Reed Galen, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee, said most of the GOP Senate candidates in Missouri “will be begging” for support from Trump.
In his retirement announcement, Blunt said he always tried to do his best: “In almost 12,000 votes in the Congress, I’m sure I wasn’t right every time. But you really make that decision based on the information you have at the time.”