AFRICAN AMERICANS/ELECTION/GOP/HOUSE OF REPS/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, the only black Republican in the House, won’t seek reelection in 2020, he announced on Thursday [8-1-19]…Hurd, a former CIA officer who was first elected in 2014, has been an advocate for bipartisan compromise on immigration and other key issues in Congress. And he has spoken out numerous times against President Donald Trump, often warning that the president’s rhetoric and positions were hurting the Republican Party. Hurd represents a sprawling West Texas battleground district that includes one-third of the U.S. border with Mexico and has flipped between Democrats and Republicans several times in the past two decades. But Hurd won two close races for reelection after winning the seat, beating Democratic opponents by 1.3 points in 2016 — even as Trump lost the district — and by less than half a percentage point in 2018, when he survived the Democratic wave that flipped the House.”
–Scott Bland, “Will Hurd, only black Republican in House, won’t seek reelection,” Politico, August 1, 2019 8:49 pm