'It’s time for me to pass the torch to someone else,' said DeMint. Sen. DeMint, tea party leader, resigning

Sen. Jim DeMint’s abrupt resignation Thursday from his Senate seat to run the conservative Heritage Foundation will leave the chamber without its leading tea party voice and potentially reverberate in GOP Senate primaries across the country.

The South Carolina Republican announced that he’d replace Ed Feulner as president of The Heritage Foundation in January.


“This is a critical time for America and there is no organization in the country, in fact, the world, that is better positioned to convince the American people that the conservative policies that The Heritage Foundation has developed over the years are the solutions to the problems that we face as a nation,” DeMint told a handful of reporters after he was introduced to staffers at the foundation’s headquarters just blocks from the Senate.

( PHOTOS: Jim DeMint’s career)

“This family of conservatives here at The Heritage Foundation helped to shape my own views,” he added. “They inspired me to run for Congress in the first place, and they’re in a position now to carry the message that we need to carry to the American people.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said DeMint called him Thursday morning to tell him he was stepping down.

“We’re sorry to see Jim go. He’s had a distinguished career,” McConnell told POLITICO in a brief interview. “My wife [Elaine Chao] is a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation. She’ll be reporting to him.”

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In an earlier written statement, DeMint said it had been an honor to serve the people of South Carolina for the past eight years but “now it’s time for me to pass the torch to someone else and take on a new role in the fight for America’s future.

“I’m leaving the Senate now, but I’m not leaving the fight,” he said.

DeMint also appears poised for a raise, with Feulner pulling in $1.03 million in 2010, according to public records. DeMint earned $174,000 in 2012 as a senator.

At Heritage headquarters north of the Capitol, dozens of staffers filed into a first-floor auditorium to hear the announcement directly from DeMint, whose muffled voice could be heard emanating from the room. Several speeches were punctuated by laughter and applause.

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The mistake the GOP made over the past four years, DeMint told reporters, was focusing too much on what the party was against rather than putting forth “bold ideas to get people inspired and behind us.”

“Heritage has those ideas,” he said, sporting a blue Heritage tie with liberty bells. “I honestly believe I can do a lot more on the outside than I can on the inside.”

The resignation is not expected to have an immediate impact on the balance of power in the Senate, where Democrats will hold a 10-seat majority next Congress. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, would appoint an interim senator until 2014, at which point a special election would be held.

Rep. Tim Scott is seen as the early favorite by many for historical implications as he would become the first black GOP senator in more than three decades. Other possible candidates include Reps. Mick Mulvaney, Joe Wilson and Jeff Duncan and state Sen. Tom Davis.

Former Attorney General Henry McMaster is widely seen as the top pick if Haley decides to choose a placeholder who would not run for a full term.

In a statement, Scott thanked DeMint for his service and said he was confident Haley “will make the right choice both for South Carolina and the nation.”

DeMint had already planned to retire after his term ended in January 2017, but he gave no indications that he’d leave with more than four years left in his term. He previously served three terms in the House.

The senator has become an influential leader in the tea party, aggressively working in Senate primaries to prop up the most conservative candidates, and often becoming a thorn in the side of his party’s leaders. While he gained prominence in 2007 helping to sink immigration reform supported by President George W. Bush, deriding such efforts as “amnesty,” his profile grew enormously in the 2010 election cycle when he joined tea party forces to become an influential player in Senate Republican primaries. He often said he would prefer to see a Senate of 30 rock-ribbed conservatives, rather than 60 more moderate Republicans.

“I never intended to be a career politician,” DeMint said. “I’ve played a role in stocking the Senate with solid conservatives who are younger and brighter and better spokesmen than I am. I know I am leaving the Senate better than I found it.”

In the 2010 cycle, DeMint was an early supporter of Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, whose candidacy effectively sent incumbent moderate Sen. Arlen Specter out of the Republican Party. And as his party was throwing its support behind Gov. Charlie Crist, the moderate Florida governor, DeMint was an enthusiastic backer of Marco Rubio, now a prospective 2016 presidential candidate.

“In eight years, he has personally led the effort to change the composition of the Senate for the better, and provided consistent and principled leadership in the fight for liberty and limited government,” Toomey said in a statement. “He will be missed.”

But DeMint’s record in primaries was decidedly mixed. He gave late support to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware over the moderate Rep. Mike Castle, and O’Donnell’s victory in the GOP primary ended up costing his party a seat in the 2010 midterms. He also backed Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican over the establishment favorite Jane Norton in the 2010 primary, but Buck lost to incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

DeMint has been unapologetic about his tactics, saying his party needs to return to its conservative roots in order to provide a contrast to voters, rather than caving on core party principles to move toward the Democratic positions. While those hard-nosed tactics have made him a rock star with conservative voters, they have earned him no favors with party leaders and GOP senators who say he’s hurt his party’s ability to return to power in Washington, while boosting his own profile in the process.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who won as a write-in candidate over Republican Joe Miller, was irked immediately after the 2010 elections when DeMint’s political action committee — the Senate Conservatives Fund — fiercely attacked her in the general election. She blamed DeMint for costing her party the majority.

“I think some of the Republicans in the Congress feel pretty strongly that he and his actions potentially cost us the majority by encouraging candidates that ended up not being electable,” Murkowski told POLITICO at the time.

In the 2012 cycle, there were fewer fights with his party leaders — namely because the National Republican Senatorial Committee decided to stay out of the primaries, for fear of engaging in the same intraparty warfare that cost their party the majority in 2010. He also said he would not target Republican incumbents. What resulted was a disastrous election cycle, where the party lost two additional seats.

With his decision to resign, DeMint now will play a crucial role with one of the country’s most influential think tanks with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“Jim DeMint has shown that principled conservatism remains a winning political philosophy,” Thomas A. Saunders, Heritage’s chairman of the board, told his employees Thursday morning. “His passion for rigorous research, his dedication to the principles of our nation’s founding, and his ability to translate policy ideas into action make him an ideal choice to lead Heritage to even greater success.”

David Catanese contributed to this report.