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Republican Rep. Jim Banks, a defender of former President Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday that he is running for the U.S. Senate seat in Indiana being vacated by GOP Sen. Mike Braun.
Banks is the first candidate to formally enter the Senate race since Braun said in December that he would forgo a 2024 reelection bid and run instead for Indiana governor. Banks’ announcement comes days after Donald Trump Jr. and the Washington-based anti-tax Club for Growth began attacking former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels as insufficiently conservative while Daniels ponders whether to also seek the Senate seat.
Banks criticized current Senate Republicans for cooperating too much with the Biden administration and allowing passage of a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill just before Christmas.
“I just believe now more than ever that we need conservatives in the Senate who are going to fight back against radical Democrat policies instead of going along with it,” Banks told The Associated Press. “Republican primary voters are looking for a conservative fighter, someone to go to Washington and fight for Hoosier family values and against the radical, socialist and woke agenda that Democrats are pushing in Washington.”
Banks, 43, was first elected to Congress from a heavily Republican district in northeastern Indiana in 2016, the year after he returned from an eight-month military deployment to Afghanistan with the Navy Reserve.
He has since become a frequent Fox News Channel guest and Trump ally who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.
