Mitch Daniels decided against a 2024 Indiana Senate bid, ending the possibility of a high-stakes Republican primary between the popular former governor and Trump-world, which has aligned behind Rep. Jim Banks.
Daniels said in a statement he decided “it’s just not the job for me, not the town for me, and not the life I want to live at this point.”
Daniels, 73, recently retired as Purdue University president and was considering a run for the seat Sen. Mike Braun is leaving to run for governor in 2024. Last week, he visited Washington, meeting with several senators as he weighed a return to politics.
He said he considered a run “on an explicitly one-term basis,” and wanted to do so “in a way that might soften the harshness and personal vitriol that has infected our public square, rendering it not only repulsive to millions of Americans, but also less capable of effective action to meet our threats and seize our opportunities.”
“Maybe I can find ways to contribute that do not involve holding elective office. If not, there is so much more to life,” Daniels said in the statement. “People obsessed with politics or driven by personal ambition sometimes have difficulty understanding those who are neither. I hope to be understood as a citizen and patriot who thought seriously, but not tediously, about how to be deserving of those labels and simply decided the U.S. Senate was not the only way.”
Banks, a Trump-aligned conservative from northeastern Indiana, has already entered the Senate race. And the Club for Growth launched a preemptive ad attacking the 73-year-old Daniels, labeling him an “old guard Republican” who is “all out of fight.”
Daniels’ allies had begun preparing for a primary showdown with Banks. One person close to Daniels described the potential race as one that would pit conservatives focused on winning…
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