Kinzinger Weighing Run For Senate, Governor Or Even White House

ILLINOIS — After announcing last week that he would not seek re-election to Congress, U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Thursday that he is eying instead the governor's office, a run for U.S. Senate or even the presidency.

An outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, Kinzinger has found himself out of favor in the Republican Party and disadvantaged by Democratic redistricting in his home state.

"Trust me, I'm not going anywhere," Kinzinger tweeted late last month, calling his decision not to seek reelection "just the beginning, not the end!"

Kinzinger, an Illinois native, was first elected to Congress in 2010 in the so-called Tea Party wave — he had Sarah Palin's endorsement. At age 20, while a sophomore in college, he was elected to the McLean County Board. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kinzinger joined the Air National Guard and flew refueling tankers and military transports in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2006, he was awarded the National Guard's Valley Forge Cross for Heroism for saving a woman from her knife-wielding boyfriend — not in a foreign country but on the streets of Milwaukee.

Kinzinger said he would likely decide by January whether to seek statewide or national office.

"The key is, how do we restore the honor of the [Republican] party in the country?" he told CNN this week.

The Kankakee Republican was one of only 10 members of his party to vote to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection on Jan. 6, and he currently serves on a select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol that day.

If Kinzinger decides to run for office in Illinois, he would likely face either Gov. J.B. Pritzker — who announced his re-election bid over the summer — or U.. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a fellow military pilot and Iraq War veteran. Duckworth, who earned a Purple Heart when she crash-landed her Black Hawk helicopter outside Baghdad in 2004, said back March that she would seek another six-year term in office.

Other Republicans who have said they will challenge Pritzker next year include state Sen. Darren Bailey, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf, former firefighter-paramedic Cheryl Erickson, businessman Gary Rabine, former police officer Christopher Roper and venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan.

Asked for a reaction to Kinzinger's potential bid, Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the U.S. House minority leader, accused Kinzinger of previously lobbying for a position with the former president.

"During the Trump administration, no one called me more for a job," McCarthy said, according to CNN's Capitol Hill correspondent Melanie Zanona.

Kinzinger tweeted that McCarthy's accusation was a "complete lie."

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• Tammy Duckworth Will Seek Reelection To U.S. Senate

But he didn't find much warmer reactions on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi told CNN that Kinzinger's potential run for statewide office "would be very hard."

Krishnamoorthi said Kinzinger would be unlikely to secure the Republican nomination without embracing Trump, and unlikely to win many votes from Democrats without embracing policies they find popular.

"So I'm not sure what the path is," he said.