{"id":322159,"date":"2025-11-30T10:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T10:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322159\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T10:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T10:19:14","slug":"gop-rep-troy-nehls-wont-seek-reelection-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322159\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Rep. Troy Nehls won\u2019t seek reelection to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, announced on Saturday that he won\u2019t seek reelection to his Houston-area district, becoming the sixth Republican in Texas\u2019 congressional delegation to announce his retirement this cycle.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Nehls revealed his decision, his twin brother, Trever Nehls, announced his bid<\/a> for the House seat, vowing to \u201cfollow in Troy\u2019s footsteps and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trever Nehls, a former Fort Bend County constable, previously ran to succeed his brother as sheriff of the county, losing a tight race in 2020 as Troy Nehls was elected to Congress. He was also narrowly defeated in his run for Fort Bend County judge in 2022.<\/p>\n

Troy Nehls, 57, is in his third term representing Texas\u2019 22nd Congressional District, centered in Fort Bend and Brazoria counties. The heavily Republican district also includes parts of Harris, Matagorda and Wharton counties, running to the Gulf Coast southwest of Houston.<\/p>\n

Nehls, a fervent supporter of President Donald Trump, said in a news release that he called Trump before announcing his retirement to \u201cpersonally let him know of my plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has always been a strong ally for our district and a true friend, and I wanted him to hear it from me first,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Nehls\u2019 announcement comes nine days before the Dec. 8 deadline for candidates to file for a place on the 2026 primary ballot, leaving a short window for potential successors to jump into the race. It also comes as the makeup of Texas\u2019 38 congressional districts remains in limbo, after a panel of federal judges blocked the state from using a new map gerrymandered to give Republicans up to five additional seats.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on Texas\u2019 request to use the new map while the court battle over its legality plays out. Under the new lines, Nehls\u2019 22nd District would retain about two-thirds of its current residents, dropping Matagorda and Wharton counties and adding more residents from Harris County.<\/p>\n

Nehls joins a list of five other Republicans from Texas who had already announced they won\u2019t seek reelection in 2026. Two \u2014 U.S. Reps. Wesley Hunt of Houston and Chip Roy of Austin \u2014 are seeking other offices, while the other three \u2014 U.S. Reps. Jodey Arrington of Lubbock, Morgan Luttrell of Magnolia and Michael McCaul of Austin \u2014 have yet to announce future plans.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Nehls joined with the rest of Texas\u2019 GOP congressional delegation<\/a> in voting to require the Justice Department to publish its files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffery Epstein, days after he advocated for concealing them. The change came shortly after Trump encouraged Republicans to vote to release the files. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Donald Trump says \u2018Jump three feet high and scratch your heads,\u2019 we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads,\u201d Nehls told reporters<\/a> last November.<\/p>\n

Before joining Congress, Nehls spent nearly 30 years in various law enforcement roles \u2014 including two terms as Fort Bend County sheriff \u2014 and served 21 years in the U.S. Army Reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cServing this country in the military, serving our community in law enforcement, and serving this district in Congress has been the honor of my life,\u201d Nehls said. \u201cThank you for your trust, your friendship, and your prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nehls serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, under which he chairs the Subcommittee on Aviation. He is also on subcommittees overseeing crime and federal government surveillance and highways and transit. He also was initially picked for the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, but did not ultimately serve on the panel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[164749,23,1340,1070,3,164750,164751,9800,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-322159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-2026-elections","tag-america","tag-congress","tag-elections","tag-news","tag-texas-congressional-delegation","tag-troy-nehls","tag-u-s-house-of-representatives","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}