In a surprise move, the chamber’s lone black Republican and sometime Trump critic says he plans “to help our country in a different way”

♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com

WASHINGTON (CFP) — Just two weeks after voting with Democrats to condemn President Donald Trump over his tweets about four liberal House members, Republican U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2020, opening up a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats in West Texas.

Hurd, a former undercover CIA agent who had been considered a rising star among House Republicans before his surprise announcement, said in a statement that he was leaving “in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security.”

U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas

While his statement did not indicate any future plans, Hurd told the Washington Post that he did intend to run for office again in the future — and that despite his criticism of the president, he planned to vote for Trump if he is the GOP nominee as expected in 2020.

“It was never my intention to stay in Congress forever, but I will stay involved in politics to grow a Republican Party that looks like America,” he said in his statement.

Of his six years in Congress, Hurd said. “There were times when it was fun and times when it wasn’t. When people were mad, it was my job to listen. When people felt hopeless, it was my job to care. When something was broken, it was my job to find out how to fix it.”

Hurd is the third Texas House Republican to forgo re-election next year, joining U.S. Reps. Pete Olson and Michael Conaway. Hurd’s seat, in Texas’s 23rd District, which he won by a mere 926 votes in 2018, is by far the most vulnerable.

Hurd, 41, was something of a political unicorn in Congress. Not only was he the only African-American Republican in the House — and one of only two in Congress — he was also a Republican representing a district that is more than 70 percent Latino, which he said gave him the opportunity to take “a conservative message to places that don’t often hear it. ”

“Folks in these communities believe in order to solve problems we should empower people not the government, help families move up the economic ladder through free markets not socialism and achieve and maintain peace by being nice with nice guys and tough with tough guys,” he said in his statement. “These Republican ideals resonate with people who don’t think they identify with the Republican Party.”

Hurd was also the last Southern Republican left in Congress representing a district Hillary Clinton carried, albeit narrowly, in 2016.

As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Hurd questioned special counsel Robert Mueller during his July 24 appearance to discuss his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, offering a less confrontational line of questioning than many of his fellow Republicans on the panel.

Last month, Hurd was the only Southern Republican — and one of only four in the House — who broke ranks to support a resolution condemning Trump over tweets he made about four far-left congresswomen known as “The Squad,” which were widely denounced as racist by the president’s critics.

The 23rd District is the largest geographically in Texas, stretching from the suburbs of San Antonio across rural West Texas toward El Paso, and one of the most consistently competitive seats anywhere in the country.

Hurd’s victory in 2014 marked the fourth time in a decade that the seat had switched between parties. He managed to hold it for three election cycles, although never winning by more than 3,000 votes.

The Democratic candidate for the seat in 2018, Gina Ortiz Jones, is running again in 2020, and Hurd was facing another difficult election fight to keep the seat, including, after his criticism of Trump, a possible primary challenge.

Conaway’s district, the 11th, which includes Midland, Odessa and San Angelo, is strongly Republican and will likely not change hands with his retirement. Olson’s district, the 22nd, in the suburbs of Houston, is more vulnerable to a Democratic challenge.

We tweet @ChkFriPolitics    Join us!