Rep. Kenny Marchant, an eight-term lawmaker from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, said Monday he won’t seek re-election in 2020. That made him the 11th GOP representative to so far say he’ll step aside — compared to just three Democrats — and the seventh in just two weeks.
Marchant, who was elected to Congress in 2004, is a founding member of the House Tea Party Caucus. He represents Texas’ 24th Congressional District, which includes the northern suburbs of Fort Worth and Dallas. The district has historically been reliably red, but Marchant’s margins of victory have grown thinner in recent elections. In 2016, he won by a comfortable two-digit margin. Last year, Marchant squeaked by with a 3 point win over Democrat Jan McDowell, according to the Texas Tribune.
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Former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne has announced that she is running for the Congressional seat being vacated by Marchant. Van Duyne served as mayor of Irving from 2011 to 2017.
“My name is Beth Van Duyne and I’m running for Congress because I know the people of the 24th District deserve to have a strong, principled voice in Congress,” she said in a Tweet.
Van Duyne has resigned her position in the Department of Housing and Urban Development to run for the seat.