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After 8 years representing WNC, Mark Meadows will not run for re-election

Asheville Citizen Times

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Transylvania, tours Rinehart Racing, a manufacturer of exhaust systems for Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycles, in Fletcher August 14, 2019.

ASHEVILLE - Rep. Mark Meadows, a staunch conservative who has grown in national prominence since his election in 2012, will retire after representing WNC in Congress for four terms.

"For everything there is a season. After prayerful consideration and discussion with family, today I’m announcing that my time serving Western North Carolina in Congress will come to a close at the end of this term," the 11th District congressman said in a statement issued Dec. 19.

"These last 8 years, I have been so blessed to serve the people of NC-11 and help give a voice to millions of Americans who feel Washington, DC, has forgotten them," the statement continued.

Throughout his tenure, Meadows has pushed for tax cuts, fewer government regulations and cuts in federal spending. And in 2015, he helped push House Speaker John Boehner out of that job in 2015.

He has had a hand in two federal government shutdowns. In 2013, he engineered a shutdown in an attempt to strip funding from the Affordable Care Act. In 2018, Meadows encouraged President Donald Trump not to accept a bill to fund much of the government without $5 billion in wall money and rallied others on the right to do the same.

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Ties to Trump

The congressman, who lives in Transylvania County, indicated he will be working more closely with the White House in the future.

"My work with President Trump and his administration is only beginning. This President has accomplished incredible results for the country in just 3 years, and I’m fully committed to staying in the fight with him and his team to build on those successes and deliver on his promises for the years to come," Meadows stated.

Meadows, the former chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus, and was considered as chief of staff for President Donald Trump in late 2018, at times as a possible replacement for Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. But Meadows is instead expected to join the White House in a yet-to-be-finalized senior adviser or strategist role, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Meadows joins a list of nearly 30 House members, including more than 20 Republicans, who have announced they won't run for reelection in 2020.

While Meadows had openly expressed his desire to serve as Trump’s chief of staff in the past, he is not expected to replace anyone currently working at the White House.

And one of those people said they expected the role to be temporary, with Meadows eventually returning to the private sector.

Meadows told reporters Thursday that joining Trump's White House staff or presidential campaign “are certainly options," but remained vague.

The 60-year-old lawmaker declined to rule out taking a new post and leaving Congress before his two-year term expires.

“I plan to continue to help the president and the administration, and how we do that and in what capacity has yet to be defined," he told reporters.

He said he might seek elective office in the future. But he said he would not run for the Senate in 2020, when GOP Sen. Thom Tillis is up for reelection, or in 2022, when his North Carolina colleague, Republican Sen. Richard Burr, has said he will retire.

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11th District representation

At home, he has had little to fear in election years. Since 2012, Meadows has blown out Democrats by up to 28 percentage points.

The 11th District covered all of Western North Carolina for years until gerrymandering after the 2010 census pushed Asheville into the 10th District, represented by Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry.

Democrat Heath Shuler represented the district until the 2012 election, opening the door for Meadows.

More:Haywood Republican Lynda Bennett announces run for Meadows' vacated seat in 2020

Political strategies

The new 11th District covers North Carolina’s 17 most-western counties, including all of Buncombe County. The old 11th District, drawn by the Republican-controlled General Assembly in 2012, splits Buncombe County along Louisiana Ave. in West Asheville. By including all of Buncombe and losing certain rural districts, political experts see the 11th shifting ideologically leftward.

“It's still a Republican-leaning districts,” said Chris Cooper, political science professor at Western Carolina University. “But it is less secure for Republicans.”

Haywood County Republican Lynda Bennett filed to run in the 11th District just hours after Meadows' announcement.

Bennett says she thinks the new district will still vote for the same political party. “We're going to miss Caldwell and Burke counties because we have good friends there,” she said of districts now excluded from the new 11th District. “But I feel confident that we still have a Republican district.”

Bennett filed for the March Republican primary before the Dec. 20 deadline set for all Congressional candidates. On the Democrat side, four candidate have filed for the seat.

After Dec. 17, any candidate who filed to run for a particular office could no longer change that office. For example, if a candidate filed to run for the General Assembly, they could not switch to run for Congress after Dec. 17. By holding his announcement until after this deadline, Meadows limited the number of candidates – both Democrats and Republicans – who could fill his seat.

"By doing it when he did it, it was strategically advantageous for the Republicans because he created a situation where most of the quality Democrats had already declared for other offices,” Cooper said.

"Clearly there was a Republican within the loop who was ready with a website and a press release to go who got a little leap on the Republican field. To put Bennett in the best position to win, it could not have been orchestrated any better.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.