Rising House GOP Star Won’t Run For Re-election

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), a fourth-term lawmaker who chairs a committee aimed at helping the US 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, Siobhan Hughes reported for Wall Street Journal.

“Congress is not an ideal place to build and raise a family,” said the 39-year-old former Marine Corps intelligence officer. I Photo: Rep. Mike Gallagher Facebook

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 US 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 the GOP.

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.

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