With the 2026 midterm elections about 16 months off, specifics of congressional churn are becoming clearer. Per the chart below, a swath of House members is giving up their seats in bids for statewide offices. So far, only one representative is set to retire after the November 2026 elections, though more lawmakers almost certainly will do so.
Senate retirement ranks, however, are a different story. Five senators in the 100-member chamber are set to leave after this election cycle.
The most prominent is Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who captained the Senate GOP for 18 years, making for the longest tenure ever of a Senate party leader. First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell went on to be majority leader for six years, spending the final two years of Barack Obama’s presidency largely in opposition mode. Then, he shepherded through President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, with an emphasis on getting the 45th commander in chief’s judicial nominees confirmed.
McConnell, 83, spent twice as long in the role of minority leader, blocking Senate Democratic initiatives where possible over those 12 years. Now, during his final two years in office, McConnell has, at times, clashed with Trump on Ukraine aid and other issues.
Nor is McConnell the only pending retirement by a senator who was a freshman member of Congress during President Ronald Reagan’s first term. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has been the Senate Democratic whip since 2005, both when his party has held the majority and languished in the minority, as is currently the case.
Durbin, 80, won a central Illinois House seat in 1982 and rose through the Democratic leadership ranks before Republicans in 1994 won their first majority in 40 years. His most enduring legislative contribution was the banning of smoking on commercial airplanes in the late 1980s.
Durbin won an open Illinois Senate seat in 1996 and has had no trouble holding it since. Possibly his most significant accomplishment, and a positive or negative depending on your political perspective, was vetting nominees for judicial vacancies. Durbin was a legislative wingman of sorts to Joe Biden as his administration sought to reverse the rightward shift of the judiciary that happened during Trump’s first term.
As Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Durbin took credit for the confirmation of more federal judges than had been confirmed during the first two years of the first Trump administration or Obama’s administration. That included Senate confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman nominated to the Supreme Court.
And not everyone who is trying to flee Congress appears on the chart below because, due to off-year elections in New Jersey, a pair of Democratic gubernatorial aspirants didn’t have to give up their House seats to make the race. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) finished a distant fourth in the June 10 Democratic primary to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ). Gottheimer returns to representing the state’s 5th Congressional District, covering the northwestern New York suburbs and exurbs. He’ll presumably seek reelection in 2026 to the seat he first won in 2018.
The New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial winner, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), also does not need to relinquish her House seat while seeking statewide office in November. She’s attempting to defy Democrats’ political odds by holding on to the governorship for her party in the third straight election.
Sherrill, also first elected in 2018, represents New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, covering western New York suburbs and exurbs. Sherril is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who piloted helicopters on missions in Europe and the Middle East, and then worked as a federal prosecutor. In November, she’ll face Trump-backed Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, a business executive and former state assemblyman, setting up a high-stakes battle of two party establishment favorites.
