Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) announced on August 1 that he is not seeking reelection in 2020.
I have made the decision to not seek reelection for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security. https://t.co/GeZ4Hh264f
— Rep. Will Hurd (@HurdOnTheHill) August 2, 2019
Politico described the importance of Hurd’s retirement:
If you are a House Republican, this has been an absolutely gutting few weeks. And, truly, if someone is trying to spin you on how the political picture is not that bad for the House GOP right now -- at this moment -- you ought to discount them as a political professional or analyst. Because it’s really, really bad, deflating and discouraging.
On Thursday night, Texas Rep. Will Hurd -- the only black Republican in the House -- announced he would not run for reelection. He beat Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2018 in a large district that runs the stretch of the Texas-Mexico border -- and she is running again. Republicans like to say this is an R+1 -- fine, perhaps -- but it’s an R+1 that Hillary Clinton won by 3 points, so it’s not much of an R+1.
Others agreed.
But while much of the political world is talking about the retirement announcement, Fox News is not as interested. Hurd was not mentioning at all during Thursday’s evening programming or Fox & Friends on Friday, and he has received only 20 seconds of coverage so far during Friday’s America’s Newsroom:
Both CNN and MSNBC covered Hurd's announcement on Thursday and Friday.
Fox News has spent plenty of time touting President Donald Trump’s alleged support in the Black community despite polls showing widespread disapproval of the president.
Hurd spoke about his decision not to run again with The Washington Post, calling out Trump’s racism:
In an interview Thursday with The Post, Hurd criticized Trump’s racist tweets last month in which the president said four Democratic minority congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Three of the women are from the United States; a fourth, Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), is a Somali refugee who became a U.S. citizen as a teenager.
“When you imply that because someone doesn’t look like you, in telling them to go back to Africa or wherever, you’re implying that they’re not an American and you’re implying that they have less worth than you,” Hurd said.
Hurd recently told Meet The Press, “I shouldn't be the only African-American Republican in the House of Representatives."