GOP Rising Star and China Watchdog Mike Gallagher to Quit Congress, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 10, 2024.
Wisconsin representative has been courted for Senate run, but plans not to seek re-election and to leave Washington
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), a fourth-term lawmaker who chairs a committee aimed at helping the U.S. compete against China, said he won’t run for re-election—a blow to the establishment wing of the Republican party, which had hoped he would have a bigger future in politics.
The 39-year-old former Marine Corps intelligence officer cast the decision as personal, saying that he had always planned to treat his service in Congress as “a deployment, not a career.” His departure will further erode the ranks of GOP committee chairs, following decisions by other Republican chairs not to see another term.
“Eight years is a long deployment, and it’s been a hell of a deployment,” Gallagher said in an interview. A married father of two, Gallagher also said he hoped to expand his family and that “Congress is not an ideal place to build and raise a family.”
He had previously ruled out a run for the U.S. Senate, saying he preferred to stay in the House, where he felt his work as a committee chair would make a lasting impact. Republicans had hoped he would run because the Wisconsin Senate seat is one of eight Democratic-held seats rated by the Cook Political Report, a non–partisan election arbiter, as at risk of falling to Republican hands. Gallagher has also consistently outperformed former GOP President Donald Trump, and his principal campaign committee had more than $4 million in cash on hand at the end of 2023, federal records show—more than any other House Republican.
(To be continued…)