Pete Sessions expected to run for Flores’s open seat in Texas

Former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) is expected to run for Congress again in 2020, according to multiple reports.

The Texas Tribune and Associated Press both report that Sessions, whose Dallas-area district flipped Democrat in 2018, will run for the 17th Congressional District seat of retiring Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas).

Sessions spent 22 years in the House, where he had become a party leader.

{mosads}His defeat in 2018 to Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) by 7 points was seen as a sign of Texas’s big cities shifting to become more liberal.

Flores’s district, which runs through Waco, Texas, is viewed as a safer red district. President Trump won the district by 17 points in 2016.

Sessions’s reported decision to jump into the race 80 miles north of his former district has not been met with a positive reaction, Flores told the Tribune.

“Pete is a friend of mine, but I wish he’d called me first,” Flores said. “I could have provided some valuable feedback to him.”

“The conservative leaders and community leaders in the district who are aware of Pete’s intentions have told me they would prefer someone who currently lives, works, and serves in our communities,” he continued. “They strongly believe that we have ample talent here to serve as their next congressman or congresswoman.”

Flores is one of six Texas Republicans to announce their retirement from Congress this year.