For decades, the halls of Congress were treated as a final political destination, a place where lawmakers arrived in their 40s and stayed into their 70s — and often beyond.
But as we enter the 2026 midterm elections, many members of one of the oldest Congresses in modern history are heading for the exits.
As of this week, 63 lawmakers have indicated they will not seek re-election. In the House, the number of retirement announcements has hit 54, the highest rate since 1992, according to the Brookings Institution’s Vital Statistics on Congress. In the Senate, nine incumbents are leaving their seats, the highest turnover since 2012.
The decisions by four sitting senators to run instead for governor mark a particularly notable reverse migration, as my colleague Carl Hulse wrote this week. The Senate was once considered the dignified pinnacle of a political career, but now leading a state looks more appealing.
Typically, members flee Congress when it looks as if their party will lose seats and, potentially, control of a chamber. The possibility of being relegated to the minority tends to make the job — and all its travel and stress — far less appealing.
“The number of G.O.P. retirements likely suggests some expectations that Democrats may retake the House,” said Molly Reynolds, who tracks congressional retirements as the director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. But, she noted, “retirements can also indicate that members simply aren’t happy with their jobs.”
Here are four reasons for the congressional exodus:
Lawmakers are afraid.
Rising political violence and threats have changed the calculation for some in Congress.
Last month, the United States Capitol Police released a disturbing report showing that the number of threats and other “concerning statements” against lawmakers, their families and staff members had jumped from nearly 9,500 in 2024 to nearly 15,000 in 2025.
Representative Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, recounted spending Thanksgiving in 2024 in a hotel room with his family after “yet another threat against our home.”
“As a father, I have to consider whether the good I can achieve outweighs everything my family endures as a result,” he wrote last November in an essay announcing his decision not to seek re-election.
Trump still holds sway.
Some of the most fascinating departures are on the Republican side, revealing the formidable power President Trump still wields over his party — even amid hairline fissures in his MAGA coalition.
In November, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who accused the president of failing his loyal base, shocked the political world by announcing her resignation. A month later, Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, one of two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, said he would also retire.
Greene and Newhouse have little in common beyond having publicly rebuked Trump. But for both, their criticism raised the likelihood of tough primary challenges this year, prompting them to seek exit strategies.
Voters are saying ‘bye bye boomer.’
After the meltdown of President Joseph Biden’s re-election bid in 2024, many Democrats have grown impatient with their party’s gerontocracy. At the beginning of this term, Democrats in the House had nearly double the number of members who were 70 or older than Republicans did.
Since then, a number of older Democrats have announced retirement plans, including longtime party leaders like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Representatives Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Jerrod Nadler of New York.
Nadler told my colleagueNick Fandos last year that the Biden episode had weighed heavily on his decision.
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“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party,” he said. “I want to respect that.”
Congress is often dysfunctional.
For some, the reason for leaving is simple: The job isn’t what it used to be.
Over the past year, lawmakers have been remarkably candid about the failures of a polarized Congress that struggles to fund even the basic workings of government.
Those frustrations have been magnified by the decision of Republican congressional leaders to cede much of their constitutional power to the White House.
“Leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said as he announced his retirement in June.
He added of his decision to leave Congress, “It’s not a hard choice.”
Trump’s political retreat in Minneapolis
The Trump administration’s withdrawal from Minneapolis demonstrated something interesting, my colleaguesReid Epstein andTim Balk write — that American voters have limits when it comes to the president’s flexing of executive power to pursue his deportation agenda.
Quote of the Day
“I have to be very careful that Bobby likes us.”
That was President Trump, nodding to how his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has earned support from a politically unpredictable cross-section of Americans who are drawn to his so-called Make America Healthy Again movement.
Kennedy, my colleagueSheryl Gay Stolberg writes, has made a midterm-year pivot away from vaccine skepticism and toward healthy eating, a far less contentious issue.
Ocasio-Cortez makes a Munich pitch
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was in Munich today for the city’s annual security conference, where she tied worsening income inequality to the rise of authoritarianism around the world. My colleagueKellen Browning has more.
Take Our Quiz
This question comes from a recent article in The Times. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)
Which two Democrats from the same state have a notably tense relationship that is newly in the public eye?
Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.
Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades.
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