Are Democrats losing their majority in the US Congress due to retirement?

A growing list of Democratic US House of Representatives from swing states is heading out in search of higher office.

According to what was published by “The Washington Post”, this exit is another source of concern for a party facing an uphill battle to maintain control of Congress next year.

The last to announce her departure is Rep. Sherry Bustos (Democrat-Illinois), the former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who announced her retirement on Friday.

Representative Charlie Crest (Democrat, Florida), announced on Saturday that he will make an “important announcement” this week, which could put his seat in Saint Petersburg in jeopardy.

Two other high-profile incumbents – Rep. Philemon Villa Jr. (Texas) and Anne Kirkpatrick (DA, Arizona) – announced their plans to leave earlier this year and join Representative Tim Ryan (Democrat from Ohio).

Also, a number of others are considering retirement in search of higher positions in competitive fields, including Democratic stars such as Representative Connor Lamb (Democrat of Pennsylvania) and Rep. Stephanie Murphy (Florida Democrat), who are seriously considering running for a higher office at a later time. this year.

The mass immigration comes as the party struggles to maintain or extend its decades-old narrow majority, currently likely to six, which will increase to seven in the coming days when the newly elected Democratic member, Troy Carter of Louisiana, takes the oath.

According to experts, the Democrats have little margin of error to maintain their grip, even if at the same time they would work against the redistricting cycle that is likely to be in favor of Republican officeholders.

The Democrats ’departure is likely to make it easier for party mapmakers to sometimes draw the maps that favor the Republicans, and it also means that the Democrats will not fully take advantage of the position, with the benefits of fundraising and name recognition.

It is noteworthy that in 2018, in the most recent midterm amendment, 91 percent of congressional seat occupants were re-elected, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

This time, however, the Democrats will be the ones who are resisting the historical winds that tend to punish the president’s party in the midterm elections. Since 1910, the party in the White House has won seats in the House of Representatives only twice: in 1934, after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected, And in 2002, when President George W. Bush was leading a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

President Bill Clinton lost 54 seats in his first half in office, Barack Obama lost 64. Donald Trump gave up 40.

Amid these grim prospects, party strategists have long viewed retirement as a key early measure of how difficult the election cycle is.

Similar early decisions to leave Congress were anathema to the Republicans in the last midterm elections, as they played a key role in the Democrats’ 2018 takeover of the House of Representatives, which followed the exodus of 33 Republicans, nearly twice the number of Democrats.

Dan Sina, executive director of DCCC at that session, said: “In 2018, there is no doubt that Republican retirement and late remapping made a huge difference in our ability to win additional seats.” Now those benefits are likely to go away. To the Republicans.

But Karen DeFelipe, DCC’s deputy campaign director, said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more Democrats in the House of Representatives did so because the Democrats have big wins to compete with.”