WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2021) Republican Senator Rob Portman on Monday said he will not seek re-election to a third term in 2022 because the United States is now so politically divided.
The Democrats seized majority control of the Senate from the Republican Party in the 2020 elections. The departure of Portman, who won by wide margins in 2016, casts more uncertainty over whether the Republicans will retain the seat in the 2022 midterms.
"I am announcing that I have made a decision not to run again in 2022," Portman, a senator from Ohio, said in a statement. "It has gotten harder and harder to break through the partisan gridlock and make progress on substantive policy, and that has contributed to my decision. We live in an increasingly polarized country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left, and that means too few people who are actively looking to find common ground"
The senator said the problem, albeit not new, has gotten worse over the past few decades.
The 100-member chamber is divided evenly along partisan lines but Vice President Kamala Harris, who doubles as senate president, gives the Democrats a tie-breaking vote when needed.
