Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced he will not be running for retiring Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-Md.) Senate seat in 2024 and will run for reelection instead.
“At this moment, I believe the best way for me to make the greatest difference in American politics in 2024 and beyond is this: to run for reelection to the House of Representatives in Maryland’s extraordinary 8th District,” he said in a lengthy statement Friday.
Mr. Raskin, one of Maryland’s most prominent Democrats, would have been regarded as a strong candidate for the open Senate seat. Mr. Cardin, 79, had announced in May he won’t be seeking reelection.
Last month, Mr. Raskin said while speaking on a CNN program he was “seriously considering” the opportunity, noting that such openings rarely happen, with as long as 30 years passing before a seat could open up again.
Leading Impeachment Efforts
Mr. Raskin came to prominence during the term of President Donald Trump for leading efforts to impeach the former president. He was a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the Capitol, and now he serves as a ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
The congressman announced in December 2022 that he was diagnosed with lymphoma, which he called a “serious but curable form of cancer.” By April 27, he announced he had completed his chemo-immunotherapy treatments and that at the time, he was in remission with a 90 percent prognosis of no relapse.
In his statement on Friday, the Maryland Democrat reiterated his opposition to Mr. Trump and the former president’s supporters, saying they “must be stopped in their political tracks.”
He told his friends and supporters to “elect sweeping Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and secure a landslide for Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2024.”
Mr. Raskin said that “[i]f these were normal times,” he would likely be running for Mr. Cardin’s seat, adding that people from “all over Maryland” had “strongly encouraged” him to run for the seat.
“But these are not normal times and we are still in the fight of our lives for democratic institutions, freedom and basic social progress in America as well as human rights and opportunity for people all over the world,” he said in his statement.
“I have received compelling arguments from friends, family and political leaders and supporters in our state on all sides of this question, and I thank you for your wise counsel and insight. I want to assure everyone that I will do whatever I need to do to see to it that our new Senator will be a Democrat and that our Senator will be a strong true-blue Democrat with broad support in our state.”
Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) and Prince George County Executive Angela Alsobrooks are among the candidates seeking to succeed Cardin.
Democrats currently control the U.S. Senate, 51-49. In next year’s elections, seats in several swing states will be up for grabs. Three Democrats are running in states that Mr. Trump won in 2020: Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Jon Tester (D-Mont.).
Jackson Richman and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.
