Congressman Sean Duffy (R-Wisc.) has announced his resignation from the House of Representatives on Monday.
Congressman Duffy, who has represented the state’s 7th Congressional District since 2011, made the announcement in a Facebook post, Fox News reports. In the post, Duffy announced that he and his wife Rachel, a Fox News contributor, are expecting their ninth child in October, but have discovered that the child has “complications, including a heart condition.”
Duffy, saying that in order to give his child “even more love, time, and attention,” declared his intention to step down on September 23rd, after nearly eight years in Congress.
Duffy and his wife both have extensive backgrounds in television, with Sean appearing on the MTV reality shows The Real World: Boston and Road Rules: All Stars; it was on the latter series that Sean and Rachel first met. Rachel had previously been a guest host on The View before becoming a Fox contributor.
The 47-year-old Duffy had been widely seen as having a bright political future; as the Fox report notes, there had been speculation that he would run for either U.S. Senate or Governor of Wisconsin, although his recent decision most likely puts an end to such possibilities. Duffy had previously served as Ashland County’s District Attorney for eight years before his election to Congress.
The subsequent special election to replace Duffy will most likely highlight the political significance of the state of Wisconsin. Republicans hold five of the state’s eight seats in the House of Representatives, and in 2016, President Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
The 2018 cycle saw a sort of comeback by Democrats in the state, when two-term Republican Governor Scott Walker ousted in his bid for a third term by Democrat Tony Evers. But earlier this year, in the statewide election for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the conservative candidate Brian Hagedorn narrowly defeated his liberal opponent Lisa Neubauer.