J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo congress Will Hurd, only black Republican in House, won’t seek reelection

Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, the only black Republican in the House, won’t seek reelection in 2020, he announced on Thursday.

“I have made the decision to not seek reelection for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security,” he announced on his website .


Hurd, a former CIA officer who was first elected in 2014, has been an advocate for bipartisan compromise on immigration and other key issues in Congress. And he has spoken out numerous times against President Donald Trump, often warning that the president’s rhetoric and positions were hurting the Republican Party.

Hurd represents a sprawling West Texas battleground district that includes one-third of the U.S. border with Mexico and has flipped between Democrats and Republicans several times in the past two decades.

But Hurd won two close races for reelection after winning the seat, beating Democratic opponents by 1.3 points in 2016 — even as Trump lost the district — and by less than half a percentage point in 2018, when he survived the Democratic wave that flipped the House.

“Serving people of all walks of life has shown me that way more unites our country than divides us,” Hurd wrote in his retirement announcement. “This understanding has allowed me to win elections many people thought I couldn’t, especially when the political environment was overwhelmingly against my party.”

The 2018 election left Hurd as one of three House Republicans from districts that Trump failed to carry in 2016. Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, a veteran who barely lost to Hurd in 2018, is already running for the seat again in 2020.

Hurd is the sixth House Republican in the past two weeks to announce his retirement, as the GOP adjusts to life in the minority and the continued transformation of the party under Trump.

But while most of the others heading to the exit leave behind safely Republican seats, Hurd’s has been a top Democratic target for his entire tenure and will be again as an open seat in 2020. Democrats flipped two suburban seats in Dallas and Houston in 2018, but they hope to make further inroads in traditionally Republican Texas next year after losing by less than 5 points in a half-dozen Texas districts last year, including Hurd’s.

“Texas is the biggest battleground state. Republicans know it, and Texas Democrats damn sure know it,” Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement.

The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Tom Emmer, said the GOP would fight to hold Hurd’s district next year.

“Contrary to what the pundits will tell you, this is an R+1 district and we will fight tooth and nail to ensure it remains in Republican hands in 2020,” Emmer said in a statement.

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