Republican Rep. Greg Pence announced Tuesday that he would retire after only three terms representing Indiana in the House, a move that comes just a few months after his younger brother, former Vice President Mike Pence, pulled the plug on his own presidential campaign.
The 6th Congressional District, which includes the southern and eastern Indianapolis area and as well as part of east-central Indiana, favored Donald Trump by a 65-33 spread in 2020, so the winner of the May 7 Republican primary should have little difficulty holding it. The candidate filing deadline is a month away on Feb. 9.
This year's GOP nomination contest will probably be considerably more competitive than the one that Pence went through six years ago, back when his sibling was still one of the most powerful politicians in the state and the nation. Before entering politics, Greg Pence served in the Marines and ran the family's chain of gas stations, Kiel Bros. Oil Co. But the company went bankrupt in 2004 during his tenure, an expensive debacle that, as the Associated Press reported in 2018, forced Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky to spend tens of millions to decontaminate the sites it left behind.
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