U.S. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) is seen throughout a Home Monetary Companies Committee oversight listening to on December 02, 2020 in Washington, DC.
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Rep. Anthony Gonzalez — one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol — won’t search re-election to his northern Ohio seat in 2022.
“Since getting into politics, I’ve at all times mentioned that I’ll do that job for so long as the voters can have me and it nonetheless works for my household,” Gonzalez mentioned in a statement he tweeted late Thursday. “As Elizabeth and I think about the realities of continuous in public service whereas juggling the growing obligations of being dad and mom to our two lovely youngsters, it’s clear that one of the best path for our household is to not search re-election subsequent fall.”
He added that, whereas household was on the coronary heart of his choice, “it’s also true that the present state of our politics, particularly lots of the poisonous dynamics inside our personal occasion, is a major consider my choice.”
A former standout large receiver at Ohio State College and first-round NFL draft decide, Gonzalez is the primary of the pro-impeachment Republicans in Congress to determine in opposition to working for one more time period.
Gonzalez, who will flip 37 this weekend, was going through a troublesome major in opposition to Max Miller, a former Trump aide from the Cleveland space who has the previous president’s endorsement. Trump got here to Ohio to marketing campaign for Miller this summer season — his first political rally since leaving workplace.
Gonzalez had been raising more money than Miller and advised The New York Occasions, which was first to report his decision, that he believed he may have gained.
“You possibly can battle your butt off and win this factor,” he advised the newspaper, “however are you actually going to be pleased? And the reply is, most likely not.”
Gonzalez was first elected to characterize Ohio’s sixteenth Congressional District in 2018. He had been a dependable conservative vote within the Home however did not hew as intently to Trump as others. When first running for the seat, he described Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., one other Trump critic throughout the GOP, as his political idol.
