CHICAGO, June 25 (UPI) -- Republican Jack Ryan Friday withdrew from the Illinois Senate race days after sex club allegations in his divorce papers torpedoed his campaign.
Ryan did not appear at a noon news conference and issued this statement by e-mail:
"It is clear a vigorous debate on the issues could not take place if I remain in the race. What would take place rather is a brutal scorched-earth campaign, the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play."
Illinois Republican Party leaders were to meet to choose a replacement candidate within a week.
Broadcast reports say Ryan decided to quit when polls taken after his custody documents were released Monday showed he had a slim chance of winning.
U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert reportedly polled Republican members of the Illinois congressional delegation and they unanimously decided Ryan should be replaced. Ryan's fate was sealed after a secret conference call among party leaders, WBBM-TV, Chicago, said.
Ryan, 44, was accused by his then-wife, television actress Jeri Ryan, of taking her to explicit sex clubs in the 1990s and pressuring her to perform sex acts in public.
