Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the few Republican lawmakers who’ve been outspoken in denouncing ex-President Donald Trump, announced on Friday morning that he will not run for reelection in the 2022 midterms.
Kinzinger posted a video on Twitter declaring that the “time is now” for him to leave Congress.
The GOP lawmaker lamented that the “price tag to power has skyrocketed, and fear and distrust has served as an effective strategy to meet that cost.”
“We’ve allowed leaders to reach power selling the false premise that strength comes from degrading others and dehumanizing those that look, act or think differently than we do,” he said. “As a country, we’ve fallen for those lies, and now we face a poisoned country filled with outrage blinding our ability to reach real strength.”
Kinzinger is one of only two Republicans on the House Jan. 6 select committee, along with fellow Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). Both GOP lawmakers have slammed the former president and his allies for trying to delegitimize the 2020 election.
In turn, Trump has declared war on them and the other eight House Republicans who voted to impeach him for sparking the Capitol insurrection. The ex-president is now on a mission to get all 10 of them kicked out of office.
Kinzinger is the second of those 10 Republicans to announce retirement. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) announced last month that he would not seek reelection, much to Trump’s glee.
Kinzinger’s path to reelection would’ve also been complicated by Illinois’ new congressional map drawn by the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature.
