GREENSBORO, N.C. — It's been a busy December for North Carolina Republican Representative Mark Walker.
Two days after announcing he would not seek re-election, Rep. Walker voted not to impeach President Donald Trump. He believes the impeachment has been harmful to the country.
"Even if you aren’t one of the 67 million who support Trump or even if you don’t think he followed best practices, that’s one thing, but to leap and make the accusation that he has committed some kind of treasonous behavior I think is damaging to our democracy. It’s damaging to our country and next November I believe it will damage some of the democrats running for office."
Now that the impeachment will move to a trial in the Senate, Rep. Walker said he does not believe President Trump will be removed from office.
"No way, in fact even some of the Senate Democrats have been going on record over the weekend saying that what they’ve seen so far has not, in their opinion, would not put them in a position where they would vote guilty in nature."
As for his decision not to run for re-election, Rep. Walker said it came down to the newly redrawn districts approved in North Carolina.
"The state assembly chose to take the three most democratic areas and put it one district and call it the 6th District. It’s a district that Hillary Clinton won by 22 points and I just didn’t think it’d be wise to spend the resources from the campaign side that people had invested in us for a race that mathematically would be impossible for a republican to win."
For now he will finish out his term in Congress and then Rep. Walker said he will open up his options for 2020, including a possible run for senate in 2022.
"With Senator Burr, Richard Burr from North Carolina retiring, it does open up the seat. We’re going to spend the next year traveling statewide and of course, we’ll continue to serve out our term in Congress which officially doesn’t end until January 20201. And that point we’ll sit down and make a decision. We want to continue to take our message of individual liberty and opportunity to all communities and if it affords us to open that up statewide then we’ll take a strong look at it."