Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) said on Tuesday that she will retire in 2022, making her the thirtieth Democrat who will not seek reelection in the 2022 midterm elections, which are widely expected to be heavily in the GOP’s favor.
“As I turn to the next chapter of my own personal and professional story, I do so with profound thanks to the community leaders, colleagues and staff who have lived our shared commitment to service with courage and humility,” Rice said in a statement announcing her impending retirement.
She said that she would spend the rest of her term focusing on “protecting our democracy and serving my constituents,” referencing Democrats’ claims that the GOP is purportedly involved in a massive effort to undermine democracy by passing more stringent voting laws.
Rice did not much explain her reason for retiring in the statement. Despite the fact that Republicans are expected to make wide inroads into the House in 2022, Rice hails from a strongly blue district, where Democrats have won the last several elections by 20-point margins or more.
Rice is a relatively new face in the House. Rice was first elected in 2014, when Republicans made otherwise wide gains in the House, for New York State’s fourth congressional district, which lies just east of New York City.
The district has been heavily Democrat-leaning for some time. Since 1992, Democrats have won every presidential and congressional election in NY04 by at least a ten-point margin in most cases, though Republicans have been far more successful in this district than in the city.
It last voted for a Republican in 1994, when Republicans took back the House for the first time in decades. In 1996, the district was turned blue and has since remained strongly in Democrats’ hands.
Rice got her start in politics in 2005, when she ran a successful campaign to become district attorney for Nassau County, New York. She remained in the post and fought off all potential challengers until 2014, when she mounted a successful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Her ultimate victory in that race was fairly narrow for the district. She won 53 percent of the vote compared to GOP challenger Bruce Blakeman’s 47 percent.
By 2016, the district had gone decidedly blue. Rice defeated Republican David Gurfein 59.6 percent to Gurfein’s 40.4 percent. In 2018 she expanded her margins, winning 61.3 percent of the vote to the GOP’s 38.7 percent.
Rice has strongly pushed for legislation that would restrict gun ownership while she has been in the House.
Rice found herself under fire after she said in an August 2017 tweet that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its spokeswoman Dana Loesch constituted a national security threat.
“I’m just going to say it. [The NRA and Loesch] are quickly becoming domestic security threats under President Trump. We can’t ignore that,” Rice said in the tweet. She did not suggest what this accusation entailed from a legislative standpoint.
Loesch called for Rice to retire for the tweet, though nothing came of this demand.
In a more recent tweet, Rice referenced the Parkland shooting and renewed her calls for federal legislation restricting gun ownership.
“Four years ago a high school shooting left 17 people dead and many more injured. Today, I stand with the Parkland community, and with the victims of gun violence across the country. For their sake, Congress must pass gun safety legislation to prevent more senseless deaths,” the tweet said.
Rice has also walked in lockstep with the Biden administration since it began in January 2021.
According to data compiled by elections website FiveThirtyEight, Rice has voted with President Joe Biden 100 percent of the time since Biden took office.
Her statement leaves her reasons for retiring fairly unclear, but Rice is far from the first incumbent to announce that she will not seek reelection.
Rice is the thirtieth House Democrat to announce that she will not run in 2022.
While speculation has been rampant that the retirements are connected to House Democrats’ poor prospects in the next election, Rice sits in an extremely safe district.
Republicans are expected to take control of the House in November.
Historically, the out-of-White House party does extremely well in midterm elections. In light of a series of controversial policy decisions by the Biden administration, Republicans consider their prospects extremely good this year, an attitude that has only been bolstered by the retirement of prominent Democrats like House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.).
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Joseph Lord is a Congressional reporter for The Epoch Times who focuses on the Democrats. He got his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Clemson University and was a scholar in the Lyceum Program.