Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Wednesday he decided not to run again for his Senate seat because he had no chance of winning a GOP primary race in his state with President Trump in the White House.
“The bottom line is, if I were to run a campaign that I could be proud of, and where I didn’t have to cozy up to the president and his positions or his behavior, I could not win in a Republican primary,” Flake said on MSNBC. “That’s the bottom line.”
“It’s not that you have to just be with the president on policy, you can’t question his behavior and still be a Republican in good standing, apparently, in a Republican primary,” Flake added.
Flake said GOP primary voters are strong supporters of Trump, which makes it impossible for anyone running as a Republican to question anything Trump says or does.
He said that when this group of voters is asked what’s most important to them, they say it’s whether other Republicans are “standing with the president.”
“They take any criticism of the president as somehow something that’s not conservative,” he said. “That’s what’s got to change, it really does.”
Trump agreed with Flake’s analysis, in a tweet he sent out soon after Flake spoke.
“The reason Flake and [Sen. Bob] Corker dropped out of the Senate race is very simple, they had zero chance of being elected,” Trump wrote. “Now act so hurt & wounded!”
The reason Flake and Corker dropped out of the Senate race is very simple, they had zero chance of being elected. Now act so hurt & wounded!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017
