WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced on Tuesday that he will not seek re-election next year, a move that is likely to set off a scramble that will pit mainstream Republicans against those from President Trump’s populist wing of the party. “I also believe the most important public service I have to offer our country could well occur over the next 15 months,” Corker said, “and I want to be able to do that as thoughtfully and independently as I did the first 10 years and nine months of my Senate career.”

Corker’s decision not to run again creates the first open Senate seat of the 2018 election cycle. “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,” Corker told local reporters in August after Trump appeared to equate white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville with counterprotesters. Trump responded on Twitter, “Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ’18.” Trump added, “Tennessee not happy!”

The announcement quickly set off attention in Tennessee about which Republicans could run to replace him, ranging from former NFL and University of Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning to term-limited Gov. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, called Corker a “model senator,” adding, “We all regret him leaving.”

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, but establishment candidates backed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have come under fire from the right, with critics questioning their fealty to Trump. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker will retire from the Senate after two terms, scrambling next year's election map and causing a seismic change in the Senate's entrenched committee structure. The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, gave Corker high marks for running the committee in an inclusive, bipartisan way.
United States Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn), the senate's Foreign Relations Chairman, announces he will not seek reelection in 2018. He is the first senator to announce his retirement this term.