Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Tuesday he would retire from the Senate when his term ends this year, after speculation that he might stick around threatened Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign to run for his seat.
Corker announced in the fall that he wouldn’t run again, abruptly canceling re-election plans in the works for several months. Blackburn, a veteran congresswoman, jumped in and quickly coalesced the Republican field.
Corker reconsidered his decision in the past few weeks, creating tumult in Republican circles as party leaders worried about a nasty and unnecessary primary battle. Ultimately, Corker opted to stick with his original decision, his chief of staff, Todd Womack, confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
“Over the past several months, Sen. Corker has been encouraged by people across Tennessee and in the Senate to reconsider his decision not to seek re-election,” Womack said. “Based on the outpouring of support, we spent the last few days doing our due diligence and a clear path for re-election was laid out.”
“However, at the end of the day, the senator believes he made the right decision in September and will be leaving the Senate when his term expires at the end of 2018,” he said. “When he ran for the Senate in 2006, he told Tennesseans that he couldn’t imagine serving for more than two terms because he has always been drawn to the citizen legislator model and believes public service should be missional.”
Several public opinion polls showed Blackburn with the advantage over Corker in a primary, in part because the incumbent has periodically found himself at odds with President Trump, and because the GOP electorate in Tennessee supports the commander in chief. Corker’s re-entry also was opposed by senior Republicans in the White House and in the Senate.
Corker has about $6 million in the bank, and his supporters were convinced, with his relationship with Trump on the mend, that he could have battled back and defeated Blackburn.
“I think he concluded he was struggling about missing public service more than missing the Senate,” said one Republican who backed Corker and urged him to jump back into the Senate race, requesting anonymity in order to speak candidly. “We believed he could win, but he worried that it would require a nasty, negative campaign, which he would find distasteful and void of pride.”
Former Gov. Phil Bredesen is the presumptive Democratic nominee. He has scored well in recent polls but Republicans are confident they will prevail, in part because Tennessee has grown more conservative since Bredesen last ran for office.
