Chuck Grassley

The oldest member of Congress will not let Tuesday’s blue wave push him out before his term ends—despite many Republicans urging him to do so.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley says he has no plans to resign, despite there being concerns in his party that a Democratic governor will choose his replacement if he dies in office.

Questions about the future of the oldest member of Congress have been raised after Democrat Rob Sand won Iowa’s gubernatorial race to replace Republican Kim Reynolds. But the 93-year-old Grassley, first elected to the Senate in 1980, says he will not step down.

“Senator Grassley is not resigning,” a spokesperson told the Daily Beast. “He remains committed to delivering for the people of Iowa, who overwhelmingly elected him to a six-year term in 2022.”

The Washington Examiner first reported the senator’s plans.

Grassley, who is third in line to the presidency, will be 95 at the end of his term in January 2029. He has not said whether he is running for reelection.

At a GOP event in late September, Grassley admitted he was keeping a close eye on the governor’s race in case the Democratic candidate ultimately had to pick his replacement.

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“One of the reasons I’m worried about who’s going to be elected governor — I don’t plan on dying in office, but if I did, I don’t want a Democrat governor choosing my successor,” he said.

During his campaign, Sand, the 44-year-old Iowa state auditor and former assistant attorney general, said he’d be open to appointing an independent.

“Whatever the law is in the state of Iowa, I’d want to talk to a lot of different people about it and be pretty open-minded about who would go there,” he told Iowa’s News Now in September.

“I’d be interested in an independent,” he added. “I think that we have a lot of people in this state who aren’t affiliated with either party. And yet, because we have this broken two-party system and the Democratic and Republican parties give themselves special legal privileges, they’re able to force independents out as candidates and discourage them as voters too.”

Grassley celebrated his 93rd birthday on Sept. 17. He shared a picture of himself holding a birthday cake from retiring Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, whose seat Democrat Josh Turek won on Tuesday.

Democrats’ midterm success in Iowa did not stop there. The party also flipped three of the state’s four congressional districts.

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