That reminds me of how before the 2000 redistricting Sherrod Brown represented a swing district. The Ohio Republicans feared him running statewide so they told him that they would draw him a safe seat in exchange for him promising to not run statewide. Brown basically said "sure, pink swear I won't."
And then in 2006 he did anyway.
Flip side of that same cycle was Tom Sawyer also threatening, like Brown, to challenge a Republican officeholder statewide if he didn't get a safe seat… and then ended up losing his primary.
IIRC Ted Strickland also threatened to run against a neighboring Republican, I believe at the time it was Bob Ney, and made the same promise and broke it too later on.
