Vulnerable Republican Announces Retirement Nearly 2 Months After DCCC Prediction
On Veterans Day Rep. Pete King (NY-02) became the 23rd vulnerable Republican to announce his retirement this year and the 101st Republican to leave the House since Trump was inaugurated.
Polling released by the DCCC last week indicated just how vulnerable the nearly thirty-year Congressman was. President Trump, who won the district by nine points in 2016, has seen his job approvals plunge 8 points in the suburban Long Island district.
Reminder: New York’s 2nd District has been a key 2020 pick-up opportunity for Democrats since day one. Rep. King was added to the DCCC’s retirement watch list in February. In September, the DCCC predicted King’s retirement would come soon.
The coverage of King’s retirement makes it clear: this seat will be “seriously competitive” in 2020. The Daily Kos now ranks the 2nd Congressional District as the second-most vulnerable GOP-held House seat going into the 2020 election. See what other observers and analysts are saying about the major impact of this retirement below:
Here’s What People Are Saying:
Associated Press: GOP Rep. Peter King retiring, giving Democrats new 2020 target
Rep. Peter King, a moderate Republican who has represented a Long Island congressional district for nearly 30 years, announced Monday he won’t seek reelection, enhancing Democrats’ chances to grab yet another suburban House seat as they defend their majority in 2020.
The decision comes days after voters flocked to Democratic candidates in state elections in Kentucky and Virginia, underscoring Republican vulnerability in a suburban revolt against President Donald Trump.
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His district includes once-reliably GOP territory in southwestern Suffolk County and a portion of Nassau County, about an hour’s drive east of Manhattan. It went narrowly for Trump in 2016.
Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., who heads House Democrats’ election arm, said King’s retirement “underlines just how serious Republicans’ problems are in swing districts across this country.” While her party has long targeted his district, she added, “We will compete to win it in 2020.”
Many suburban districts around the country have been moving steadily toward Democrats as moderate, well-educated voters swing away from the polarizing president.
Twenty House Republicans have announced they will not seek reelection. Three other GOP lawmakers have resigned and already left Congress.
Only a handful of Republican-held districts being vacated by retirements are expected to be seriously competitive next year, but King’s will certainly be among them
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Inside Elections: New York 2: Open Seat Shifts to More Vulnerable Category
Years of predictions finally came true as GOP Rep. Peter King of New York announced he will not seek re-election in the 2nd District. His decision leaves behind another competitive open seat in the suburbs for Republicans to defend.
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Since Republicans are unlikely to unveil a candidate as strong as King, the seat must be considered more vulnerable than it was before he announced his decision. We’re changing our rating of the 2nd District race from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
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The Cook Political Report: King’s Retirement Moves NY-02 From Likely to Lean Republican
On Monday, 14-term GOP Rep. Peter King (NY-02) announced he won’t seek reelection in 2020. While King’s departure had been rumored for months and doesn’t come as a shock, he’s the sixth most senior Republican in the House and one of just five remaining from New York. His heavily suburban Long Island district moves from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
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It voted for Trump 53 percent to 44 percent in 2016. But, it twice voted narrowly for Barack Obama and the popular King held off Democratic single-payer advocate Liuba Grechen Shirley by just 53 percent to 47 percent in 2018.
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New York State of Politics: NY-2: Peter King’s Once Red District Has Shifted
At the time, GOP voters outnumbered Democrats 158,273 to 156,239. But, like the rest of the New York City suburbs over this decade, there’s been a marked shift in enrollment for the district, which is composed of Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Democrats now outnumber Republicans, 177,551 voters to 164,273. Non-enrolled or “blank” voters who do not identify with a party have outpaced both Democrats and Republicans, adding nearly 20,000 voters over the last six years, reaching 128,780.
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CNN: Longtime GOP Rep. Peter King announces retirement
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King’s retirement comes as his party inches closer to an election in which they could lose a number of vulnerable seats in the House, including his own. Earlier this year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a strategy memo that the New Yorker is “at the top of the retirement watch list” and included his district on a list of “targeted districts.”
Republicans have struggled in suburban districts during President Donald Trump’s time in office, a trend recently on display last week in Virginia, where Democrats seized control of the state legislature.
So far, 16 House Republicans and five Democrats have announced they won’t seek reelection next year.
The Daily Kos: Veteran New York Republican quits the House, creating another huge headache for the GOP
On Monday morning, veteran Republican Rep. Pete King announced he would not seek a 15th term next year, opening up yet another vulnerable House seat the GOP will have to scramble to defend.
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Now Republicans will have to find someone new to hold King’s district, which represents fertile territory for Democrats. While this seat, which takes in a swath of Long Island’s South Shore to the east of New York City, swung to Donald Trump by a 53-44 margin after backing Barack Obama 52-47, it snapped back in the 2018 midterms, giving Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo a 51-47 win. And while educational attainment in New York’s 2nd is roughly in the middle of the pack, the district has one of the highest average incomes in the nation, suggesting it could still move further away from the Trump-era GOP.
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The New York Times: Peter King, Veteran New York Republican in House, Announces He Will Retire
WASHINGTON — Representative Peter T. King, the longest-serving Republican in New York’s congressional delegation, said on Monday that he would retire, joining a growing exodus of Republicans from Congress ahead of the 2020 elections.
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But in an interview, Mr. King conceded that the toxic political environment in Washington and the uncertainties of a coming impeachment proceeding against President Trump had underscored his sense that it was time to leave.
“Something was building for a while,” Mr. King said. The difficulties of coordinating his Thanksgiving and Christmas travel plans with family amid the unknowns of the impeachment battle, he said, “somehow became like a metaphor” fueling his decision.
The exit of Mr. King, 75, comes as a growing number of Republicans have decided to retire rather than seek re-election as they eye the grim political realities for their party, including an uphill slog to win back the House in next year’s election and the prospect of sharing a ticket with an unpopular president. The dilemma is particularly acute for Republicans in suburban districts, where voters have been alienated by Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and his positions. Mr. King is the 20th House Republican to depart Congress at the end of 2020 because of retirement or seeking another elected office.
Mr. King, who represents parts of Nassau County and Suffolk County as part of New York’s second congressional district, said none of those concerns influenced his decision, pointing to his favorable polling numbers and a sizable war chest. More persuasive, he said, was his daughter’s recent move to North Carolina, and a desire to give New York Republicans plenty of time to find a replacement candidate ahead of primary in April.
“I think it’s gotten too toxic,” Mr. King, a boxer, acknowledged, “but once I’m in the arena, I enjoy the battle.”
New York Daily News: Rep. Pete King, longtime Long Island Republican, says he’s retiring in new blow to Trump’s GOP
Rep. Pete King, the dean of the New York’s Republican congressional delegation, announced Monday he’s stepping down at the end of this term, dealing a new blow to already slim GOP hopes of reclaiming the House in 2020.
The 75-year-old Long Island Republican became the latest in a flood of GOP departures this year, saying in an interview with the Daily News that he’s retiring in order to spend more time with his family.
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King’s exit opens up the door for Democrats to flip his Suffolk County district, which has been trending bluer in recent years.
Washington Post: Rep. Peter King says he will retire, highlighting GOP’s suburban challenges
Fourteen-term GOP Rep. Peter T. King of New York said Monday that he would not seek reelection next year, highlighting a political and institutional challenge for Republicans as they seek to halt a precipitous erosion of voter support in the suburbs as their party retreats from the political center under President Trump.
King is the fifth House member of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership to announce retirement this year and the 20th Republican to retire overall. His decision immediately put his South Shore Long Island seat near the top of Democratic target lists at a time when suburban voters continue to trend away from Republicans.
Last week’s off-year elections saw Democrats gain ground in state and local races in key suburban battlegrounds such as Bucks County, Pa., greater Indianapolis and the Hampton Roads region of Virginia — places that reliably elected Republicans for decades until Trump’s 2016 election. Since then, college-educated women in particular have abandoned Republican candidates who have been unable to separate themselves from Trump and the hard-line conservative agenda he has pursued.
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Rep. Cheri Bustos (Ill.), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairwoman, said in an interview Monday that King’s retirement indicated that Democrats remain on the march in the suburbs — crediting her party’s strong fundraising and aggressive field operations with driving the spate of retirements.
Bustos said Democrats are targeting as many as 39 districts that Republicans won in 2018 by 5 points or fewer and where demographic trends are headed in Democrats’ favor. “We are putting them on notice,” she said. “We’re going to play there, and we think we’ll have some tremendous success in 2020.”
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But Trump has clearly been an anchor on other suburban Republicans, and the GOP’s attempts to tie Democratic candidates to far-left elements have sputtered: After the 2018 elections, only three congressional Republicans were left representing any part of the greater New York City area: King, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (N.J.) and Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.).
King won reelection in 2018 with 53 percent of the vote over Democrat Liuba Grechen Shirley — his lowest percentage since first being elected in 1992. In a statement, Shirley said she was “seriously considering” another run for Congress, and national Democratic operatives believe they already have a top-tier recruit in Jackie Gordon, an Army Reserve veteran and Babylon town councilwoman.
Besides King’s Long Island seat, Democrats have hopes of picking up House seats held by retiring GOP moderates Susan Brooks (Ind.) and Will Hurd (Tex.). The seats of other centrist retirees such as Reps. Paul Cook (Calif.), John Shimkus (Ill.) and Greg Walden (Ore.) are probably out of Democratic reach, but each could be replaced by a more conservative Republican who could be less inclined to work across the aisle.
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