Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Friday he won’t run for reelection, hours after Illinois lawmakers signed off on a new congressional redistricting plan in the state.
The six-term Illinois Republican faced a tough path to victory. His newly redrawn district would guarantee a primary battle against Rep. Darin LaHood, a fellow central-Illinois Republican.
Kinzinger announced the decision on Twitter, using the opportunity to denounce “leaders that don’t lead,” and lament a political arena that reinforces and rewards its most extreme elements.
“We’ve allowed leaders to reach power selling the false premise that strength comes from degrading others,” the congressman said in a nearly five-minute video accompanying the announcement.
“We’ve fallen for those lies, and now we face a poisoned country filled with outrage blinding our ability to achieve real strength,” he added.
Kinzinger is one of just two Republicans on the select panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, along with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).
The representative is also one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, a decision he told The Washington Post was not a hard one to make.
“The second Donald Trump tweeted that this is what you get when you steal an election, two or three hours after the insurrection started, I realized he was just unfit to be president,” he told the paper in February.
“When impeachment came up, I didn’t think it was the best thing to do because I think it just gave Donald Trump an opportunity to be a victim, and he’s really good at being a victim,” Kinzinger added. “But I knew that if it was put in front of me, there was no choice.”
Kinzinger hinted in the video at a return to politics at some point in the future; he previously formed a political action committee seeking to support anti-Trump Republicans and is currently soliciting donations.