Rep. Victoria Spartz, the Ukrainian-born Republican from Indiana who has sparred with the leaders of her party on several key issues, is sitting out the 2024 election cycle.
Widely mentioned as a possible candidate for Senate, Spartz announced Friday that she won’t be a candidate for the open seat — and isn’t running for a third term in the House either.
“I won a lot of tough battles for the people and will work hard to win a few more in the next two years,” Spartz said in statement. “However being a working mom is tough and I need to spend more time with my two high school girls back home so I will not run for any office in 2024.”
Her decision leaves Indiana Rep. Jim Banks as the leading GOP contender to replace Republican Sen. Mike Braun, who announced in November that he is running for governor. Another potential Republican Senate candidate, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, took himself out of contention earlier this week.
Spartz moved to the U.S. two decades ago from Ukraine and served for four years in the Indiana Senate before her election to the House in 2020.
In Washington, she has cultivated a reputation for independence and unpredictability. She criticized her party’s effort to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., of her membership on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denouncing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s attempt to punish Omar as “a charade.” However Spartz ultimately voted in support of Omar’s removal on Thursday.
Spartz also seesawed on her support for McCarthy’s 15-ballot election for the speaker’s gavel in January. She voted for McCarthy three times on Jan. 3, then switched her vote to present for the next eight ballots on Jan. 4 and Jan. 5 before backing him on the final four ballots on Jan. 6.
Spartz, 44, never planned a long career in politics. In an interview with CQ Roll Call, she described herself as a “reluctant politician.”
“I have a lot of my own things I wanted to do in life,” she said. “I’m going to get some stuff done and get the hell out of politics, for sure.”
Spartz won an open-seat race in Indiana’s 5th District in Indianapolis’ northern suburbs in 2020 by 4 percentage points, but won reelection in November by 22 points.
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