Republican Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz will not seek reelection in 2024, she announced Friday.
“It’s been my honor representing Hoosiers in the Indiana State Senate and U.S. Congress and I appreciate the strong support on the ground. 2024 will mark seven years of holding elected office and over a decade in Republican politics. I won a lot of tough battles for the people and will work hard to win a few more in the next two years. However, being a working mom is tough and I need to spend more time with my two high school girls back home, so I will not run for any office in 2024,” Spartz said in a statement.
INBOX: Rep. Victoria Spartz will not run for office in 2024: pic.twitter.com/W58Fw5xO1u
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) February 3, 2023
First elected in 2020, Spartz represents Indiana’s Fifth District. She won reelection in 2022 by 22 points, and the seat will likely remain Republican. Spartz is the second member of Indiana’s House delegation not to seek reelection in 2024, joining Senate candidate Jim Banks.
Born in northern Ukraine, Spartz became a naturalized U.S. citizen after marrying her husband. She played a leading role in GOP messaging after Russia invaded the country in early 2022. Spartz visited Bucha and Kyiv in April 2022, and she and Montana Sen. Steve Daines were the first U.S. officials to visit the country after the invasion began.
Spartz was harshly critical of President Joe Biden’s response to the Russian invasion, arguing that the U.S. has not armed Ukraine quickly enough. (RELATED: CBS Partially Retracts Documentary About Ukraine War, Missing Military Aid)
“This president needs to get his act together and exercise some leadership,” she said in March 2022. “What’s happening under his watch is [an] atrocity. What he’s doing to this country and to the world is unforgivable … he must act decisively fast or this blood of many millions of Ukrainians will be on his hands too.”
Spartz has also been critical of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She urged the U.S. to conduct oversight of military aid to Ukraine, citing corruption concerns, and pushed back against calls to institute a no-fly zone over eastern Europe.
Spartz is the first member of the 118th Congress to announce their retirement.