Former Congressman Ryan Costello (R-PA) has begun to show interest in running for the open Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022. The seat is currently held by fellow Republican Pat Toomey who announced his plans last October to retire when his current term ends.
Costello is fairly moderate and represented a large part of the Philadelphia suburbs in Congress. The Lugar Center ranked him the 12th most bipartisan member of the 115th Congress (2017-2018). He was a member of Congress from 2015 until 2019 after not seeking a re-election bid.
Many believe that Costello did not seek re-election in 2018 after Pennsylvania faced serious redistricting of its congressional districts. His new district shifted to include urban areas like the city of Reading and made the district significantly more Democratic-leaning. In November 2018, Chrissy Houlahan was elected to fill the vacated seat by 17 points. She won once again in 2020 by a margin of 13 points.
The field should be large in 2022 for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat. The state is coming increasingly purple and Republicans will have to defend the seat if they want a chance to regain a Senate majority. Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman (D) has already begun to explore a run for the seat and would be a clear favorite in a Democratic primary.
Ryan Costello will be a name to watch in the GOP primary as he hopes to pull away Republicans who may want to move on from the era of Donald Trump. He even had an interview earlier this month with NPR that was titled, “The Republican Party after Trump“.