Next year’s U.S. Senate race in Indiana is wide open.
Senator Dan Coats has announced he will not seek re-election in 2016.
The 71-year-old Republican was elected to the Senate in 2010, defeating former Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth for the seat vacated by Democrat Evan Bayh.
It was Coats’ second stint as a U.S. Senator. He served from 1989 to 1999, after representing Indiana’s 4th District in the U.S. House before that.
Coats says in a statement “I have concluded that the time has come to pass this demanding job to the next generation of leaders.”
In the statement, he pledges to focus all of his time and energy on “the major challenges” that Hoosiers sent him to Washington to address, until his term ends.
Coats serves on the Finance, Select Intelligence, and Joint Economic Committees on Capitol Hill.