U.S. Reps make horrible Presidential candidates. They have no record or experience of winning a statewide election, and are all too often coming from safe districts where they rarely, if ever, face a serious challenge, and therefore can afford to be more “pure” to their base.
Once they have to compete on a larger scale, the invariably crash and burn.
I always thought that Kenyan Marxists made bad Presidential candidates but the times they are a changin’.