Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) announced on Friday that she will not seek re-election in the 2026 midterms.

“This has been a journey, but it’s time. It’s time. And I know all of you are wondering, ‘What is the congresswoman going to do?’ Well, the congresswoman is going to not seek another term,” Wilson said, according to NBC News.

NBC News has more:

She had first announced her plans in an interview with the Miami Herald that published on Friday.

Wilson is the 60th House lawmaker this cycle to announce they are either retiring from Congress or running for higher office.

At 83, Wilson had been part of a cadre of senior lawmakers in their 80s and 90s who had said they were running for another term in 2026 — defying voters who are clamoring for generational change among the nation’s leaders.

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But Wilson recently underwent eye surgery and had missed a month’s worth of votes this spring as she recovered. In the GOP’s redistricting push this month, her Miami congressional district lost its coastal areas but remained deep blue, meaning she almost certainly would have been re-elected to a ninth term.

She told the Miami Herald that she strategically waited to announce her retirement until after the new maps were established so that her district would not be targeted.

Wilson said days ago that a report about her retirement was a “crazy rumor.”

“@MarcACaputo and I reported Saturday that she was calling local allies to give them the news,” Axios Congress reporter Andrew Solender said.

“She denied it, calling it a ‘crazy crazy rumor’ that made her ‘almost distraught,'” he added.

Fox News shared further:

The outlet added that Wilson had returned to Capitol Hill to vote May 21 following her hiatus from Washington that included missing more than 40 votes, which Republican critics highlighted earlier in May.

One of Wilson’s highly publicized clashes with Trump came in 2017 after Army Sgt. La David Johnson, a soldier from Miami, was killed in an ambush in Niger. Wilson said she was in the car with Johnson’s widow, Myeshia Johnson, when Trump called to offer condolences.

Meanwhile, Wilson claimed that Trump said on the call that the Army Sgt. “knew what he signed up for” when he became a soldier, a characterization Trump and his aides denied.

The feud escalated further when then-White House chief of staff John Kelly defended Trump from the White House briefing room and attacked Wilson for having a history of politicizing solemn moments to score political points.

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