On Wednesday, GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy announced he would not seek re-election to South Carolina's 4th Congressional District, a seat that backed Trump 60-34. Gowdy, who was a local solicitor (also known as district attorney) when he was elected in 2010, said in his statement said he would be "returning to the justice system," though he didn't give any details about what exactly that meant. Gowdy is best known for serving as chair of the Benghazi committee, which ostensibly existed to investigate the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Libya, but devoted its time to going after Hillary Clinton. Gowdy took over as chair of the House Oversight Committee last year after Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who also enjoyed going after Clinton at every chance he got, resigned. Gowdy is the ninth chair to retire this year.
Gowdy was swept into Congress in the 2010 tea party wave when he challenged Rep. Bob Inglis in the primary for this Spartanburg-based seat. Inglis had once been a reliable GOP vote, but he spent his final years in office criticizing the party for denying global warming and opposing the Bush administration's troop surge in Iraq; Inglis further pissed off the seat's large Evangelical population when he opposed giving the phrase "under God" constitutional protection in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Inglis' apostasies caught up with him in a year where conservatives were looking to purge the party of any semblance of moderation. A number of local Republicans challenged Inglis, but Gowdy led the field with 39 percent of the vote to only 27 for Inglis. The incumbent continued to campaign, but Gowdy delivered him a punishing 70-30 defeat in the runoff, one of the worst primary losses for a scandal-free incumbent we can remember.
Gowdy himself never had trouble getting re-elected, and he was very popular with his GOP colleagues. However, there were plenty of signs before now that he wasn't happy in the House. In 2015, then-Louisiana Rep. John Fleming announced that Gowdy "wants to go back to South Carolina" and would not seek re-election in 2016. Then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney, who called himself Gowdy's "best friend," then put out a tweet storm insisting that Gowdy would indeed run for a fourth term—even though, Mulvaney previously claimed, he "had to beg Trey to run for re-election in 2014." After hours of confusion, Gowdy put out a statement saying he had "every intention" of running again, though he didn't commit to anything. Gowdy eventually did run and win a fourth term, but it was clear he was looking for something else to do.