WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., stunned Washington Tuesday by announcing he will not run for re-election next year, expressing dismay with President Donald Trump and the direction of the Republican Party.
“We must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal,” Flake said in a passionate speech on the Senate floor aimed clearly at Trump.
“I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit and silent,” Flake continued. “When the next generation asks us, why didn’t you do something, why didn’t you speak up, what are we going to say?”
The speech, like Flake’s book earlier this year in which he warned that conservatism has been compromised by “celebrity and authoritarianism,” seemed aimed at putting himself on the record for posterity by speaking out against Trump.
He’s not alone in the GOP. Hours earlier, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he has lost faith in Trump’s ability to rise to the presidency. A few days earlier, former President George W. Bush implied Trump had emboldened bigots. And shortly before that, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suggested Trump would “rather find scapegoats than solve problems.”
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But all of them are insulated from the need to win re-election, and now so is Flake.
“There may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party,” Flake told the Arizona Republic.
Flake faced a potentially tough primary against former state Sen. Kelli Ward, a fire-brand conservative who is backed by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon. Ward had previously challenged McCain.
And the next battle of the GOP civil war tipped off immediately, with Trump allies like Breitbart News declaring victory and establishment-defenders gearing up to take down Ward.
Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, which hails from the Trump wing, called Flake’s announcement, “the best decision he ever made as senator.”
On the other side, the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed: “Steve Bannon’s hand-picked candidate, conspiracy-theorist Kelli Ward, will not be the Republican nominee for this Senate seat in 2018.”
Still, the Trump faction has been winning the war so far this year. Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., lost a primary to insurgent Roy Moore, while Corker and Flake are ceding their seats.
Earlier this year, Flake published “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle,” which drew on conservative icon Barry Goldwater while bashing Trump’s brand of politics.
Flake is an orthodox conservative who took an ideological stand against much of what Trump stands for while still voting with the president and GOP leaders the vast majority of the time.
Despite Flake’s widely recognized talents as a politician, his positioning ultimately left him alienated from both wings of his increasingly divided GOP.
“He’s sort of in the worst of both worlds,” Arizona Democratic strategist Andy Barr said. “Moderates have come to believe that he’ll vote for them when he won’t and Trump people think he’s the anti-Christ.”
Democrats had put Flake’s seat in the number-two spot on their target list in next year’s midterm elections, but it’s not immediately clear what Flake’s retirement means for the race.
On the one hand, open seats tend to be more vulnerable, but on the other hand polls showed Flake was unpopular in Arizona, and therefore potentially uniquely vulnerable.