GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Former U.S. Representative Justin Amash is considering running for U.S. Senate in the upcoming election.
Amash made the announcement via X (formerly known as Twitter) Thursday morning.
"I’ve been humbled in recent weeks by the many people who have urged me to run for Senate in Michigan and to do so by joining the Republican primary," the post read.
Amash, a former Republican, left the party in 2019 and became an Independent after being elected to Congress as a Republican in 2011. Amash would later join the Libertarian Party in 2020, becoming the first sitting member of Congress from that party in U.S. history.
"Today I’m launching the Justin Amash for Senate Exploratory Committee as I consider entering the race," Amash wrote in his X post. "We need a principled, consistent constitutional conservative in the Senate—someone with a record of taking on the bipartisan oligarchy, defending sound money and free speech, fighting the surveillance state and military-industrial complex, and protecting all our rights. The stakes are high: freedom, social cooperation, and human progress itself."
Amash drew criticism from his party in 2019 when he voted to approve a resolution to formalize the impeachment inquiry into then President Donald Trump.
Amash said his Senate Exploratory Committee came to be because of residents urging him to run because of a lack of good candidates in the Republican Primary.
"They see what I see: contenders for the seat who are uninspired, unserious, and unprepared to tackle the chief impediment to liberty and economic prosperity—an overgrown and abusive government that strives to centralize power and snuff out individualism. The people of Michigan and our country deserve better," the X post said.
Amash will have until April 24 to submit 15,000 signatures required to be put on the ballot ahead of the August Primary Election.
If Amash decides to make a run for the Senate seat, which will be vacated by longtime Senator Debbie Stabenow (D) when she retires at the end of the year, he will run amongst a very crowded field of a dozen other Republican candidates.
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