Congressional Retirements Cause Chaos for Both Parties—for Very Different Reasons

The recent rush of congressional retirements has painted an ugly picture for both parties—for very different reasons.

While both parties are hemorrhaging lawmakers this term—Democrats are losing 24 members, and Republicans are currently out 20—the consensus on Capitol Hill is that the mass exodus of respected, senior GOP members is an embarrassing reflection of a chaotic majority that’s achieved little beyond ousting its own speaker.

A pair of high-profile, mid-term exits last month from Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Ken Buck (R-CO), in addition to the slew of retirements from powerful senior members, have cemented the narrative that serving in the House GOP is a miserable experience. Naturally, Democrats are trying to feed into that story, urging voters to show Republicans the door.

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“It says a lot that when House Republicans run for the retirement exits, they’re trashing their own party on the way out,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Viet Shelton said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

It’s certainly true that retiring Republicans have done plenty of intra-party bashing on their way to the exits. Before he retired in March, Buck said this past year that serving in Congress had been the worst term in his decade on Capitol Hill. While weighing his own retirement, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) said Congress was “broken beyond most means of repair.”

One anonymous House Republican told Axios last month that GOP lawmakers want to be in the minority. “No need to govern,” the lawmaker explained.

But despite the pit of despair that House Republicans find themselves in, there’s a different story unfolding on the campaign trail. Insead of sprinting for the exits, hundreds of congressional wannabes are clamoring to get in the front door, pouring themselves into crowded primaries and bruising head-to-heads.

And it turns out, the throngs of retirements from Congress could actually help the GOP hang on to the gavel.

“Retirements are a huge problem for the Democrats,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC) said last fall. “They’re not a problem for us.”

A House Republican strategist told The Daily Beast this week that Hudson’s assessment remains “100 percent true.”

“The big thing is that we have no swing state retirements,” the strategist said. “Every retirement is in a ruby red seat, so it doesn’t impact the fight for the majority. However, Democrats, they have seven swing seat retirements.”

Three of those seven blue districts are likely to change hands due to redistricting in North Carolina. The remaining four seats are very much in play, creating even greater challenges for Democrats as they now have to invest heavily in expensive media markets. The races to replace Reps. Katie Porter (D-CA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Dan Kildee (D-MI), and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) are all likely to be competitive, costly brawls.

Without incumbents with deep ties to the district, Democrats have their work cut out for them.

“These places where retirements are generating open seats in competitive districts will end up getting a lot of attention—including a lot of money,” said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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In three of those races, Republican frontrunners are retread candidates who lost last cycle but have built up some name recognition in their districts. Scott Baugh—a longtime GOP official who almost won in 2022—has already clinched the nomination in Porter’s old Orange County district. Baugh will take on Dave Min (D), a state legislator, in what’s already become a nasty face-off.

In the race to succeed Slotkin, last year’s failed candidate former state Sen. Tom Barrett (R) is likely to take on state Sen. Curtis Hertel (D). The competition to the south, in Michigan’s eighth district, features two crowded primaries. Paul Junge—a Trump administration alum, who lost to Kildee in 2022—is again vying for the seat. State Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet is the Democratic frontrunner.

So while the spate of retirements may make the House GOP more extreme and even less governable, it’s Democrats who may pay the price in terms of seats.

Shelton, the DCCC spokesperson, said he still feels good about Democratic chances in the open seats, especially in light of non-stop GOP drama.

“It’s against this backdrop of dysfunction and Republican infighting that the public will be voting and why, in races to fill competitive open seats, we’re confident voters will choose Democrats’ responsible governance over the extreme MAGA acolytes that Republicans are nominating across the battleground,” Shelton said.

But even if Democrats hold these seats, spending more money to play defense is the last thing they want to be doing as they swing for the majority. But they also have to contend with Virginia, where a bloated nine-person primary—with no immediately clear frontrunner for national Democrats to coalesce around yet—doesn’t help matters.

The suburban D.C. district is considered one of the best flip opportunities for Republicans in the country, and as Spanberger runs for governor, Democrats need to devote resources to helping their new nominee “introduce themselves,” Virginia operative Jared Leopold told The Daily Beast. Meanwhile, Republicans have a strong slate, including former Green Beret Derrick Anderson and Navy SEAL Cameron Hamilton.

The Democratic race includes Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman—who is known nationally for helping his twin brother bring the report that initiated the first Donald Trump impeachment inquiry—as well as a slew of formidable local officials.

“A lot of it is because the races are so big because they don’t come open that often,” Leopold said. “There’s a glut of talent, which is a good problem to have.”

Primaries for open seats in safe districts are similarly massive and heated, many have gotten so ugly that they’re generating local news coverage urging readers to settle in and “grab your popcorn.”

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The Democratic primary to replace Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) has drawn 22 candidates, including former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn. In another part of the state, 16 Democrats are running to replace Rep. David Trone (D-MD). And in a bruising contest, nine Republicans are running to fill Buck’s seat—including GOP firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO).

In some cases, the primaries are driving the races to ideological extremes to pick up the most voters, particularly in the GOP contests where members are seeking Trump endorsements and national Republican attention.

Arizona boasts one of the most spirited such contests. Six Republicans are vying for the seat in the state’s deep-red eighth district, which is currently held by staunch conservative Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ). Arizona strategist Chuck Couglin told The Daily Beast it’s become a catch-all contest for ambitious Republicans state-wide.

“Typically Arizona always has, every decade, we generally get another congressional seat, which always serves as a relief valve for everybody who wants to be congressman,” Arizona strategist Chuck Coughlin told The Daily Beast.

“It’s actually acted as a draw for all these Republican candidates who were looking for something to run for,” he said.

The race has attracted some well-known failed GOP candidates scavenging for a political future. Former Senate candidate Blake Masters—who lost last cycle to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ)—is up against Trump-endorsed Abe Hamadeh. Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma is also running, with Lesko and former GOP Gov. Jan Brewer’s support.

Things have gotten feisty between Hamadeh and Masters, with the former calling on the latter to drop out for “intentionally misleading voters” about how much money he’s raised and carpetbagging. (Hamadeh also doesn’t live in the district.)

Masters has returned the favor with an attack ad claiming Hamadeh’s parents were illegal immigrants from Syria.

“There’s other narrative arcs to aid that, I think, are going to be dragged into the equation here before that’s all the shooting is done,” Coughlin said.

The jockeying is driving the race further and further to the right. While Lesko is a Freedom Caucus conservative, similar GOP sparring in open seat primaries is producing staunchly conservative candidates in districts currently occupied by more establishment lawmakers.

In Texas, for example, GOP voters have already nominated Brandon Gill—a hard-right, election denying conspiracy theorist to replace retiring, establishment-oriented Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-TX).

“The kinds of folks who are in many cases choosing to run for Congress—again, especially in some of these safe Republican seats—are as the center of gravity in the Republican conference has moved to the right, they tend to be kind of consistent with that trend,” Reynolds said.

Ironically, it’s precisely those types of members—conservative flamethrowers more often courting media attention than advancing policy—who are making life miserable in Congress. As hard-right members who stonewall GOP legislative priorities and bad-mouth their peers drive out senior members, they might just wind up filling Congress with more of their own ilk.

The chances that a bipartisan-minded member is “replaced by someone who’s similarly bipartisan-minded I think are probably going down,” Reynolds said. “Just based on how people look at the current Congress, and what kind of person looks to current Congress and says that this is a place where I want to serve again.”

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