Myth Busted: Large Number of Retirements Will Doom Republicans in 2020

In light of Texas Congressman Will Hurd’s decision not to run for a fourth term, many publications have printed articles predicting an apocalypse for the GOP in the 2020 election. The Hill published an article called “Hurd Retirement Leaves GOP Gloomy on 2020.” Fox News published an article titled “Troubling Signs for House GOP as retirements mount ahead of 2020 elections.”

So far, 14 members of the House of Representatives have announced that they will not run for re-election; 11 Republicans and three Democrats. Hurd’s retirement causes the Republican Party particular concern because he currently represents Texas’s 23^rd Congressional District, a swing seat narrowly carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Many believe that the large number of Republican retirements signify pessimism about the party’s chances to retake the House in 2020.

Members of Congress retire for a variety of reasons. For one thing, serving in the House of Representative sucks compares to serving in the Senate. You have to run for re-election every two years.  Eventually, some people just get tired of it. Many members of the House retire to pursue a higher office, such as governor or Senator. While the pay doesn’t really go up in either office, the amount of time spent running for re-election goes down. In all but two states, gubernatorial elections take place every four years while Senators have six-year terms. Finally, some members retire because they feel dubious about their chances at winning re-election and/or do not want to have to go through another vicious campaign in a competitive district.

Let’s face the facts. Republicans would have had a hard time holding on to Texas’s 23^rd Congressional District even with Hurd on the ballot.  Hurd just barely won re-election last fall and has never captured more than 50 percent of the vote in any of his three races. While Hurd complained about President Trump’s rhetoric a lot, he probably did not want to have to go through another grueling re-election bid.  The same likely applies to Rob Woodall of Georgia’s 7^th Congressional District, who just barely won re-election in a seat that President Trump carried with 51 percent of the vote. Immigration has dramatically changed the voting patterns in his district, which has the 65^th highest share of foreign-born residents of all 435 Congressional districts. The Republican share of the vote plummeted from 60 percent in 2012 to 51 percent in 2016. Kenny Marchant, who represents Texas’s 24^th Congressional District, also announced his decision to forego re-election. Marchant, like Woodall, represents a district with a high share of foreign-born residents and that swung away from the Republican Party by a margin of about 10 points between 2012 and 2016. Marchant had a small margin of victory in 2018 but he performed slightly better than Woodall, who only held on by a razor-thin margin.

While Republicans might have to worry about holding onto those three seats mentioned above, Republicans should have no trouble holding onto the seats currently held by retiring Reps. Bradley Byrne, Martha Roby, Paul Mitchell, and Mike Conaway.  President Trump won all of their districts by 25 points or more in 2016 and captured at least 60 percent of the vote in each of them. Republicans should not have to worry about Utah’s 1^st Congressional district, held by retiring Rob Bishop, going to the Democrats either. President Trump carried Bishop’s district by more than 25 points but captured less than 50 percent of the vote thanks to spoiler candidate Evan McMuffin.

The remaining seats could cause Republicans heartburn as they work to overthrow Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Susan Brooks of Indiana’s 5^th Congressional District earned herself a spot on my list of the top 10 House Republicans worthy of a primary challenge.  However, I removed her name from the list the second she decided not to run for re-election. Brooks represents the only district in Indiana where President Trump received a lower share of the vote than Mitt Romney did four years earlier. Still, President Trump won the district by double digits and Brooks won it by double digits during her re-election bid last year; meaning that Democrats would only win if a blue wave sweeps across the country. Pete Olson represents Texas’s 22^nd Congressional District, which comes in at # 67 of 435 in terms of the number of foreign-born residents. As such, President Trump only carried the district with 52 percent of the vote; a drop from Mitt Romney’s 62 percent in 2012. Olson only won by single digits in his most recent re-election bid but Republicans probably deserve the benefit of the doubt in that race, in my opinion. Finally, Montana’s Greg Gianforte has decided to run for Governor rather than run for re-election. He ran for governor in 2016 but narrowly lost to Democrat Steve Bullock. Montana, despite voting overwhelmingly Republican in presidential elections, has developed a habit of voting for Democratic candidates for Senate and governor. Montana has not had a Republican governor since 2004 and it had two Democratic Senators until 2014. Democratic Senator Jon Tester won re-election last year even as Gianforte won the state’s sole Congressional seat. Republicans can rejoice in the fact that Montana has not sent a Democrat to the House of Representatives since the mid-1990s.  President Trump’s margin of victory, which will likely exceed 20 points as it did in 2016, will surely help whoever the Republicans come up with for their Congressional candidate.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have absolutely nothing to worry about when it comes to holding on to New York’s 15^th Congressional District; which Crooked Hillary carried with more than 90 percent of the vote. As I have mentioned before, Republicans could benefit from having a social conservative like Ruben Diaz win the Democratic primary rather than an AOC-type extremist. While Hillary Clinton could not crack 50 percent in New Mexico’s 3^rd Congressional District, Republicans still have an uphill battle if they want to win there. Republicans’ best pick-up opportunity comes in Iowa’s 2^nd Congressional District, where Democrat Dave Loesback announced his intention to retire. President Trump won that district with 49 percent of the vote after Mitt Romney lost it by double digits in 2012.

Based on what people on TV and online might try to tell you, one would think that the party with the highest number of retirements will likely perform poorly in the general election. For starters, we have a long way to go before we get the final number of retirements for this election cycle. Also, recent history does not show a correlation between the number of retirements and a party’s performance in a general election.  I have assembled a table of the past six House elections, the number of retirements in each party, and the net change in seats.

Year	# D Retirements in House	# R Retirements in House	Result
2008	6	27	D+21
2010	17	20	R+63
2012	22	19	D+8
2014	16	25	R+13
2016	18	25	D+6
2018	21	40	D+41

The above table proves that only in 50 percent of the six most recent elections, the party with the highest number of retirements suffered losses. In 2010, the biggest wave year of all, more Republicans than Democrats retired. In spite of this challenge, Republicans kicked the Democrats’ butts on Election Day; picking up 63 seats, more than enough to give the Republicans control of the lower chamber. In 2012, a slightly higher number of Democrats than Republicans decided to retire. The number of retirements had no bearing on the party’s overall performance; Democrats picked up eight seats.  In 2014, more Republicans than Democrats decided to retire; yet Republicans still picked up 13 seats. In 2008, an astronomically high number of Democrats decided to retire compared to Republicans and Democrats walked away on Election Day 2008 with 21 more seats.

In summation, retirements do not appear to have a correlation with a party’s performance in the nationwide election, with all 435 seats up for grabs. However, retirements can have a dramatic impact on a party’s ability to hold onto specific seats. History shows that open seats have a higher chance of flipping than seats with an incumbent running for re-election.

In 2014, Republicans capitalized on Democratic retirements in four districts by flipping those seats from red to blue. Similarly, Democrats only managed to flip one seat from red to blue as a result of the incumbent’s retirement. Incumbent Republican Gary Miller decided to retire after his district became dramatically more Democratic as a result of redistricting. The other seats flipped by Republicans accomplishing something they failed to do in the 2018 House races: defeating incumbents.

The Democrats flipped 43 seats from Republican to Democratic in 2018; they achieved more than a quarter of their pickups came by winning open seats and the rest came from defeating incumbents. The only two Republican pickups came in the form of open seats. Tim Walz of Minnesota’s 1^st Congressional District decided not to run for re-election after nearly losing in 2016 while Rick Nolan of Minnesota’s 8^th Congressional District elected to do the same after barely surviving his re-election bid. Republican pickups in those two seats on Election Night 2018 served as the only bright spots in an otherwise disappointing showing for the Republican Party in terms of House races.

In every single election cycle in recent memory, at least one seat has flipped parties partly, if not totally because of the retirement of its incumbent. In 2016, the Democrats probably would have and could have held onto Florida’s 18^th Congressional District if its incumbent Patrick Murphy decided to run for re-election instead of run for the Senate. Murphy’s absence from the ticket caused Republicans to flip a seat he won by 20 points two years earlier. Similarly, Republicans probably would have held on to Nevada’s 3^rd Congressional District if its incumbent Joe Heck decided to run for re-election instead of pursuing a seat in the United States Senate. Heck won his re-election by more than 20 points in 2014 and probably would have won again, since President Trump narrowly carried his district.  In 2018, retirements of incumbents who won re-election by 20 points or more in 2016 likely cost Republicans seats in New Jersey’s 2^nd Congressional District, New Mexico’s 2^nd Congressional District, and Washington’s 8^th Congressional District.

My “yellow brick road” to the House majority took into account the fact that Republicans would likely lose a few seats even if they do recapture the majority.  Even in the stellar Republican years of 2010 and 2014, Republicans lost control of two and three seats, respectively. I always considered Texas’s 23^rd Congressional District the hardest to hold.  Assuming Republicans lose in Texas’s 23^rd Congressional District, Republicans will need at least 20 seats to retake control of the House of Representatives. President Trump won 31 seats currently represented by Democrats while Republicans only represent two districts carried by Hillary Clinton, not including TX-23. Do the math. Republicans could still lose a few of those seats as well as the Clinton-won seats held by Republicans and still retake the majority. While the high number of Republican retirements compared to Democratic retirements might make the task of dethroning Speaker Pelosi a little more difficult; a path to the majority still exists. For all we know, by the end of the cycle, the Democrats will have more open seats to defend than Republicans. Stay tuned.