Republican congressman Bill Flores, who represents a district that stretches from Waco to suburban Austin, announced Wednesday morning that he will not seek reelection in 2020.
Flores is the fifth House Republican from Texas to announce his retirement this year, but Republicans do not appear to be in serious jeopardy of losing his seat in 2020. Flores saw his 2016 margin of victory nearly cut in half during the 2018 blue wave, but he still managed to win re-election 15 percentage points.
Retiring Texas congressmen Pete Olson and Kenny Marchant, by contrast, won their suburban districts by mere single digits in 2018 after several cycles of easy, double-digit victories. Republicans are also in danger of losing retiring congressman Will Hurd’s district on the Texas border, which has been a battleground before and after Donald Trump’s election.
Hurd was once touted as the future of the GOP, but he clashed with President Trump on several matters of policy and was one of just four House Republicans to condemn Trump’s tweets telling four progressive Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to the countries “from which they came.”
Flores hasn’t publicly clashed with the president and isn’t in danger of losing his seat. But serving in the minority simply isn’t as interesting or fun as serving in the majority, and a congressional salary isn’t close to what Flores, a former CEO of an energy company, made in the private sector.
“Following the end of my current term in January 2021, I look forward to spending much more time with my family and our grandchildren,” Flores said Wednesday. “I also intend to resume business activities in the private sector and to stay politically active on a federal, state and local level. Lastly, with a little luck, I will have time to do a little more flying and skiing than I have been able to do during the last ten years, and to introduce our grandchildren to those activities!”