Overall, 31 Democrats are departing, compared with just 18 Republicans.2 To be sure, this is a common midterm trend — House members from the president’s party tend to leave Congress in greater numbers because the midterms usually go poorly for their side. But Republicans need to flip just four seats to gain a majority in the House,3 and it’s possible GOP victories in seats left behind by outgoing Democrats will account for at least that many. The table below lays out the most competitive districts that these Democrats and Republicans won’t be contesting.
Not every House departure gives Republicans a leg up, as most districts are relatively safe for one party, which you can see at the end of this article where we present the data for all 49 outgoing members. However, if we look at the most competitive districts that are up for election — defined as having partisan leans between D+15 and R+154 — we can clearly see that Democrats were more likely to have abandoned these seats than Republicans. In total, 13 Democrats left these kinds of seats versus just five Republicans, which means more Democratic-held seats are now in danger. Incumbency isn’t nearly as strong of an electoral boon as it was in the past, but it’s still likely that Democratic incumbents would have outperformed a replacement-level nominee from their party.
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