Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, said on Saturday that he will not seek reelection next year, making him the latest House Republican to announce their decision to leave Congress in recent months.
“I have made the decision, after conversations with my beautiful bride and my girls over the Thanksgiving holiday, to focus on my family and return home after this Congress,” Nehls, who has served three terms, said in a statement.
The Texas Republican, a vociferous supporter of President Donald Trump, said he spoke to the president before making his decision.
“President Trump has always been a strong ally for our district and a true friend, and I wanted him to hear it from me first,” Nehls wrote.
A growing number of House Republicans have announced their departures from Congress in recent months. Including Nehls, 23 House Republicans are retiring or running for higher office compared to 17 Democrats.
Just over a week ago, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a fierce Trump ally-turned-critic, said that she will resign in January as she railed against the president in a video statement.
Republicans, who currently have a slim majority in the House, are seeking to hold onto or expand that lead in the midterm elections next year. But some are considering resigning even sooner and say they could lose the majority before then because of the tight numbers, according to Punchbowl, citing terrible treatment of GOP lawmakers by the White House.
Nehls was first elected to the House in 2020. Since Trump won the 2024 election, he has positioned himself as an unquestioning ally to the president, once telling The Washington Post: “So now he’s got a mission statement of his mission and his goals and objectives. Whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. And that’s it.”
A fellow Texas Republican, Rep. Jodey Arrington, said earlier this month that he will not seek reelection after his term ends. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska also announced in June that he will retire at the end of the current legislative session.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.