Trump Wants to Nationalize Elections

On Monday, Donald Trump suggested nationalizing elections—that is, having the federal government run them so he could be sure that illegal immigrants, Democrats, and other riffraff couldn't vote. However, to save money, he would have the feds take over voting only in blue states. How conscientious!

This didn't go over well, in part because the Constitution calls for the states to run elections. Congress does have a small role, though. For example, Congress has mandated that all states have Election Day on the Tuesday directly following the first Monday in November (on account of Halloween, more or less). Congress can make some other rules but it can't actually give the federal government the authority to run elections. The president has no role whatsoever in running elections. It is one of the few areas where the veep has more power than the president. As president of the Senate, the veep gets to preside over the counting of the electoral votes in a presidential election. This must have been painful for Kamala Harris on Jan. 6, 2025, when she had to announce that Donald Trump won and she lost.

When reporters pointed this out to Trump, he said that the states are agents of the federal government. He obviously was not paying attention in sixth grade because the game plan was that the federal government was granted only the powers the states were unable to do themselves, like providing for national defense and regulating interstate commerce. The states are perfectly capable of running their elections and have been doing so for 250 years.

Trump has often claimed that illegal immigrants vote in blue states, but that is exceedingly rare and when it happens it is almost always due to green card holders who mistakenly think they can vote. To combat this nonexistent fraud, Trump signed an XO banning noncitizens from voting, something that is redundant since every state already has laws banning noncitizens from voting in federal elections (although some states allow cities to permit noncitizens to vote in municipal elections).

Trump also signed an XO requiring documentary proof of citizenship for anyone to register to vote. The courts have consistently thrown this out because it creates a new requirement for voting not in the Constitution. Trump has also tried to ban absentee voting, but again the courts have shot this down, saying it is up to the states to pass laws about absentee voting.

Some Democrats are worried that Trump really means it and will go to the mat for it to prevent the Democrats from winning the House in November. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said: "This guy is deathly serious about stopping us from voting, bringing him to account. He's got the National Guard, he's got ICE, he's got the Postal Service. He can do a lot of damage. I always take him at his word. And then I multiply it by 10."

Some Republicans are pushing back on this. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said: "I'm a big believer in decentralized and distributing power, and I think it's harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one. So in my view, that's always a system that's worked quite well." Part of Thune's dislike for any federal control over elections is that in 2020, the House, then controlled by the Democrats, passed H.R. 1, the "For the People Act," which would have forced states to offer election-day registration, expanded early voting and absentee voting, curbed gerrymandering, provided for small-donor election financing, made presidential candidates publish their tax returns, and much more. The Republicans filibustered it to death in the Senate. If Thune were to approve Trump's plans for more federal control over elections, that would open the gate to the Democrats passing H.R. 1 again next time they got control. He doesn't want that.

But other Republicans like the idea of federal election laws. One of them is Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), who won national fame in 2020 when he told Trump, that, no, he was not going to look for another 11,780 votes for Trump in Georgia. Raffensperger is now running for governor and has changed his tune. For example, he is against "ballot harvesting." Sounds good, but what does that mean in practice? For example, disabled people in nursing homes often ask for absentee ballots and fill them in. Then one of the nursing home staff collects them all and brings them to a ballot drop-off location. That is ballot harvesting. Raffensperger's view is that the disabled people need to bring them to the drop-off place personally, even if they can't walk or are bedridden. That this would disenfranchise them in practice is fine with him.

The new pitch for nationalization of voting by Republicans is a 180° turn for the Party since 2016. While Russia was interfering with the 2016 election, Barack Obama wanted DHS to provide election security to the states. Hard as it may be to swallow, back then DHS saw Russians as the enemy, not Americans. Many Republican members of Congress and Republican governors balked at DHS providing election security, saying election security was none of the federal government's damn business. How that view changes depending who is sitting in the White House at the moment. (V)

Trump and Vance Are Having a Disagreement

All vice presidents who have dutifully served their traineeship and want a promotion have the built-in problem of having to defend the president they served with while also showing that they are capable of running the show on their own. This means disagreeing with the president at least occasionally. When Kamala Harris was asked what she would have done differently than Joe Biden, she couldn't think of anything. This tied her closely to an unpopular president. This may not have been the thing that sank her, but it certainly didn't help.

J.D. Vance is enough of a politician to understand that if he comes out against any of Donald Trump's policies, Trump's supporters will hold that against him. Yet he needs to put some daylight between himself and Trump to show that he is his own man. He may have found the issue he needs to pull this trick off: the Epstein files. Trump has said it is time to move on, so Vance is open to keeping the story alive. In particular, he wants Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify before Congress. Focusing on Epstein is clever because: (1) Randy Andy is not an American citizen and does not live in the U.S., so if subpoenaed, he just won't show up and (2) this is about a personal failing of Trump (being "involved" with a notorious sexual predator) and not a policy issue that would upset MAGA voters. The publication of this photo from the Epstein dump last Friday does raise questions about what the former prince is doing with this woman (or if she's an underage girl). Did she faint? Is he about to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?

This may be an excellent issue for Vance because many MAGA voters think Trump is hiding something and if Vance becomes the champion of getting it all out there, many MAGA voters will give him credit for doing what they want.

Since Vance is not mentioned in the Epstein files, another thing he can do is lash out against the "incestuous elites" mentioned in the files. He's safe here, but Trump is definitely not. So, this is a veiled suggestion that Trump belongs to the "incestuous elites" but one with plausible deniability if Vance is called on it. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Vance said: "I think that it just shows there's an incestuous nature to America's elites, and it's pretty gross. And, a lot of people, I think, it reflects very poorly on them. Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, a lot of others." This leaves enough room for people to think: "Hmm, was Trump one of the 'others'," while Vance leaves himself room to deny that he meant to include Trump in the "others" if asked about it.

Vance has roughly until the midterms to think of more ways to separate himself from Trump without separating himself from Trump's policies and Trump's voters. It gives him something to do for the next 10 months. (V)

Republicans Are Freaking Out about the Texas SD-9 Special Election

Last week's special election in Texas state Senate district SD-9 in and around Fort Worth is giving Republicans up and down the line the heebie-jeebies. On Saturday, a relatively unknown Democrat, Taylor Rehmet, won the district by 14.4 points. In 2022, Kelly Hancock (R) won by 20 points. In 2024, Donald Trump won the district by 17 points. No Democrat has won the district in more than 30 years. Shifts of 34 and 32 points tend to get noticed.

The general freakout is largely due to the district's large Latino population. This could be a harbinger of trouble ahead for Republicans with Latinos. Maybe they don't like the idea of masked government thugs arresting anyone who looks like a Latino and sending them off to "detention centers."

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who represents TX-23, a rural majority Latino district that runs for 550 miles along the Mexican border from just east of El Paso almost to Laredo, said: "It should be an eye-opener to all of us that we all need to pick up the pace." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the election was a "very concerning outcome." Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) tweeted that the results are a "wake-up call for Republicans across Texas. Our voters cannot take anything for granted." Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said: "a swing of this magnitude is not something that can be dismissed." Texas GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser said: "That imagery coming out of Minnesota in the last few days has had a huge impact on not only Hispanic voters, but swing voters, independents in Texas and around the country."

Democrats were giddy. Tory Gavito, president of the Democratic donor network Way to Win said she received excited texts from major donors all weekend. She knows, and the Republicans know, that Latinos are the largest ethnic group in Texas, making up 40% of the population. Nationally, Latinos represent 20% of the U.S. population. If they swing heavily to the Democrats in November, there goes the House. Here are the 10 states with the largest percentage of Latinos (data from 2023):

State	Pct. Latino
New Mexico	48.15%
California	39.83%
Texas	39.46%
Arizona	31.04%
Nevada	29.20%
Florida	26.75%
Colorado	22.22%
New Jersey	21.94%
New York	19.62%
Illinois	18.50%

There are Senate races in Texas, Florida, Colorado, and Illinois in 2026. There are also races for governor in 2026 in every one of these states except New Jersey, which had one in 2025, in which Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) won in large part due to a massive swing of Latino voters. A big swing among Latino voters could heavily impact all these statewide races.

There are also 38 congressional districts that are majority-Latino. Here they are:

District	PVI	Incumbent	Pct. Latino
TX-34	EVEN	Vicente Gonzalez (D)	88.5%
TX-16	D+11	Veronica Escobar (D)	80.8%
TX-15	R+7	Monica De La Cruz (R)	78.9%
FL-27	R+6	Maria Elvira Salazar (R)	74.2%
FL-28	R+10	Carlos Giminez (R)	73.4%
FL-26	R+16	Mario Diaz-Balart (R)	73.2%
TX-28	R+2	Henry Cuellar (D)	72.9%
TX-29	D+12	Sylvia Garcia (D)	72.4%
CA-22	R+1	David Valadao (R)	69.3%
TX-20	D+12	Joaquin Castro (D)	68.2%
IL-04	D+17	Jesus Garcia (D)	63.2%
CA-34	D+28	Jimmy Gomez (D)	61.6%
CA-35	D+8	Norma Torres (D)	61.2%
CA-46	D+11	Lou Correa (D)	61.2%
CA-29	D+20	Luz Rivas (D)	61.1%
CA-42	D+18	Robert Garcia (D)	61.1%
CA-18	D+17	Zoe Lofgren (D)	60.8%
CA-21	D+4	Jim Costa (D)	60.7%
CA-13	R+1	Adam Gray (D)	60.7%
CA-25	D+3	Raul Ruiz (D)	60.4%
TX-23	R+7	Tony Gonzales (R)	60.0%
CA-33	D+7	Pete Aguilar (D)	58.7%
CA-39	D+7	Mark Takano (D)	58.5%
CA-38	D+10	Linda Sanchez (D)	58.3%
AZ-03	D+22	Yassamin Ansari (D)	58.2%
CA-44	D+19	Nanette Barragan (D)	57.9%
CA-31	D+10	Gil Cisneros (D)	57.4%
CA-52	D+13	Juan Vargas (D)	57.2%
NM-02	EVEN	Gabe Vasquez (D)	56.1%
AZ-07	D+13	Adeltita Grijalva (D)	55.5%
TX-33	D+19	Marc Veasey (D)	54.5%
CA-43	D+27	Maxine Waters (D)	54.1%
TX-35	D+19	Greg Casar (D)	51.3%
NY-15	D+27	Ritchie Torres (D)	51.1%
NY-14	D+19	Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D)	50.5%
NY-13	D+32	Adriano Espaillat (D)	50.4%
CA-37	D+33	Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D)	50.3%
FL-09	D+4	Darren Soto (D)	50.0%

Thirty-two of the districts already have a Democrat in the House, but six have a Republican representative. If Latinos really turn against the Republicans, at least four of these will be in play; all except the two very deep red districts in Florida. This means the Democrats have four potential pickups in November in these districts. In addition, there are eight other districts where Latinos have a plurality, but not a majority. Only one of these has a Republican representative, Rep. Michael Cloud (R) in TX-27. This Corpus Christi district is R+14, so it is not a battleground, but if Latinos really want to send a message, maybe it could become competitive. (V)

Washington Post Fires One-Third of Its Staff

When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013, many people breathed a sigh of relief as he saved the paper and brought it into the digital era. It did well for a number of years. During that period, there were essentially four national newspapers, the Post, The New York Times, the Rupert-Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Since the latter doesn't do a lot of deep-dive investigative reporting, that leaves only three serious national papers, and at the WSJ, any story Murdoch doesn't like won't make it. That left only the Times and Post to speak truth to power.

Yesterday, Bezos (well, his underlings, acting with his approval) fired a third of the Post's staff and eliminated entire departments and sections. Some of the cuts are not so important by themselves, but weaken the overall paper. For example, the Post will eliminate all sports coverage. That's not so important since there are plenty of other outlets covering sports in detail, but those subscribers who bought the Post for its sports coverage may now cancel. This weakens the overall financial picture. Foreign bureaus have been closed and coverage of foreign news will be cut way back.

Why did Bezos allow this? The paper has been in financial trouble for some time, but if he didn't like it anymore, he could have put it up for sale. Some newspaper chain, say, Gannet, McClatchy, or Hearst, would probably have bid for it. Or he could have created a foundation and put it in the foundation. But he didn't do that. What is he up to? We are not sure, but it looks like he is trying to destroy the paper so he can shut it down in such a way that all the reporters are gone and no one else can swoop in and rebuild it, the way he did when he bought it. So is he willing to throw away the $250 million he paid for it? Very possibly. That is peanuts to him. Still, what's the point of throwing away that money?

It is because Bezos is actually very stupid for such a smart man. Donald Trump hates the Post since he can't control it and the reporting is often unfriendly to him. If Bezos gradually kills it off, he is probably hoping that Trump will be grateful and then give Amazon and his space company, Blue Origin, billions in business. What he doesn't understand is that Trump doesn't do grateful. Not his thing. Loyalty is a one-way street with Trump. Giving Blue Origin more business will tick off Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, and who is a far bigger Republican donor than Bezos. So very likely, the end game here is the end of the Post in due course and no new business for Bezos.

The Times is doing very well, mostly due to its games, cooking, puzzles, and other non-news related features. But having only one national newspaper that does investigative reporting and is not beholden to Rupert Murdoch is a terrible hit to democracy. And remember, the Times has been actively trying to get more conservatives to subscribe to it, so that could color its coverage in subtle (or not subtle) ways.

Democrats understand this scenario and are already complaining loudly. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) tweeted: "A devastating day for the paper of record in our nation's capital. Bezos just spent $40M sucking up to Trump with Amazon's 'Melania,' but is now cutting a third of [Post] staff—including much of the international & local teams—for 'budget' reasons? The corporate takeover of media is a threat to our democracy & the delivery of the truth to the American people." Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) posted: "We need tough, fair, independent reporting at home and abroad in order to keep our democracy. What a disappointing day. We all want to protect our democracy. That means facing this hard truth: right now it is facing greater danger at home than from any foreign threat."

Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Post, had this to say: "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations. The Washington Post's ambitions will be sharply diminished, its talented and brave staff will be further depleted, and the public will be denied the ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world that is needed more than ever." The Los Angeles Times used to be a serious national newspaper. Now, after Patrick Soon-Shiong got done with it, it is a local paper focusing on Southern California news and little else. Is this the Post's future?

Ruth Marcus, who worked at the Post for 40 years in many positions, wrote an article in The New Yorker headlined: "How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post."

The Washington Post Guild, a union that represents some of the fired journalists, put out a statement saying: "If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that has defined this paper for generations and serve the millions who depend on Post journalism, then The Post deserves a steward that will." The Times' story doesn't gloat. It just reports the basic information in a straightforward way. The Atlantic's story on this has the title: "The Murder of The Washington Post." At The Guardian, the headline is "It's an absolute bloodbath: Washington Post lays off hundreds of workers." It is a sad day for journalism, news, truth, and democracy. (V)

Poll: Biden Was a Better President than Trump

Donald Trump is constantly comparing himself to Joe Biden and coming out on top. Funny about that. But the voters have other ideas. A Harris poll of registered voters in February 2025 showed that 58% saw Trump as a better president than Biden. In December 2025, that was down to 53%. Now by a margin of 51% to 49%, the voters think Biden was a better president. The direction is ominous for Trump, and he cares about this a lot.

Both presidents are underwater, but Trump is deeper under water, with a net -10 vs. Biden's net -8. On the economy, Trump is also down. Now only 47% think the economy is better under Trump than under Biden. Among independents, 6 in 10 think it is worse now than under Biden. (V)

Trump and Dimon Are at Each Other's Throats

Jamie Dimon, CEO of the largest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, and Donald Trump are locked in mortal combat now. Trump has sued both Dimon and the bank for closing his accounts after the failed coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump says he was debanked for political reasons. Dimon says it was because federal law requires banks to close the accounts of people engaged in illegal activities. Trump is on the offense here, but that doesn't mean he will win. Dimon is a very political animal.

Part of the reason for the lawsuit may be to punish Dimon for saying he is "barely a Democrat." Trump would have preferred "solid Republican." In that respect, it is just Trump's now-standard retribution again Democrats. Legal experts say that Trump will lose and the judge is likely to throw the suit out fairly quickly.

Part of the reason for Dimon closing Trump's accounts is that other banks had done that, too, and after leaving the White House, Trump had a lot of debt and no place to borrow money. This left him open to dealing with shady foreign characters and banks. Dimon didn't want to have Chase's reputation sullied by being involved with Trump's future questionable dealings. Trump was also facing about 90 criminal counts in four jurisdictions. At the time, it appeared likely that some of these would result in convictions. In the end, only those in New York did. Dropping a client who might impact a bank's reputation negatively is allowed—in fact, required—by federal law.

Dimon also knew at the time that the incoming Biden administration was going to tighten up the banking regulations that Trump had loosened. This gave Dimon all the more reason to get rid of a client who might attract the regulators' attention.

Trump generally picks on people who are weak. As CEO at the biggest bank by assets outside of China, Dimon is not weak. He also knows all the other major players in the financial world. In the end, Trump is almost certain to get nothing out of this, but Dimon is smart enough to give him some "concession" (meaning something he was already planning to do or is already doing), so Trump can brag of it as a win. For example, Dimon could say that Chase will now loan money to people who want to use it to buy a house, thus helping potential homeowners. Trump could then TRUMPet this as helping affordability. Will Trump learn anything about not picking on people his own size? We doubt it. (V)

Money Can't Stop a Wave

Money is important in politics, but it isn't everything. A new analysis by election forecaster Nathan Gonzales shows that while money can help an incumbent, when there is a wave by the other party, money can't pave over the angry voters. Gonzales looked at three recent wave elections: 2006, 2010, and 2018.

In 2006, the Democrats picked up 31 seats. In this election, 22 incumbent House Republicans running for reelection were swept out to sea. All but three outspent their Democratic opponents. Some Democrats overcame massive spending disparities and still won. These include Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX), who spent only 26% of what his opponent did, Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH), who spent only 27% of what her opponent did, and Heath Shuler (D-NC), who spent only 41% of what the Republican incumbent spent.

2010 was a blow-out for Republicans. Fifty-two House Democrats lost their seats, even though 43 of them outspent their Republican challenger. In some cases, though, the Republican's spending margin wasn't all that great. For example, Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Steve Stivers (R-OH), Kristi Noem (R-SD) and Francisco Canseco (R-TX) spent only 10% more than the Democratic incumbent. However, eight Republicans spent only a third of what the incumbent spent and won anyway. When the voters want change, money doesn't go all that far.

2018 was a blow-out for the Democrats. They flipped 41 seats, including 30 incumbents running for reelection. Of the 30 losers, 23 were beaten by someone who spent more money. Having a president Democrats hated made it easy for challengers to raise lots of money, so they had the political wind at their back AND more money. Good combination if you can get it.

This year, the wind is at the Democrats' back, but the Republicans have already raised boatloads of money. That may not matter so much because the number of competitive districts is so small now. At some point, in any district, you hit the point of diminishing returns. If a voter sees a nasty negative Republican ad 15 times per evening and the Democratic ad only 5 times, that doesn't necessarily make the voter 3x more likely to vote Republican. And Democrats need to flip a net of only three seats to get control. However, there are two question marks still: Will Florida draw a new map and when will the Supreme Court kill the VRA altogether? (V)

Trump's Goodies for Voters Are Not as Good as Advertised

Donald Trump made a lot of campaign promises and he technically fulfilled some of them, but the net result is not always what the voters were expecting. The problem is that while he wanted to pass out goodies to his voters, like no tax on tips or overtime, budget hawks in the House attached a lot of conditions to them so many people don't qualify and even those who do get less benefit than they were expecting. This could actually backfire on Trump. If he hadn't made the promises, people would have expected this year's tax bill to look like last year's. But due to the promises, many people are expecting a big refund and they may not get it due to the complexity of the law and the many exceptions built into it to make sure the government doesn't lose too much money.

For example, the no tax on overtime applies only to people covered by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Are you covered? Call your lawyer. It's not simple. Even IRS doesn't know, so it is consulting the Department of Labor to find out. Lynne Camillo, an IRS lawyer, recently said: "We are not, as IRS attorneys, experts in the Fair Labor Standards Act so we are working on ways to point taxpayers to resources put out by the Department of Labor to help them make determinations in more complicated situations." Having an IRS lawyer say the IRS lawyers cannot understand the law is not a great start. And even if someone manages to qualify, the rules are complicated. For example, if someone is paid time-and-a-half for overtime, only the "half" is tax free, which requires an administration to keep track of "regular" time and "qualifying" time. That wasn't there before. Will companies and taxpayers be able to get it right? We are not holding our breath. Oh, and this holds only in weeks the person worked more than 40 hours, even if their regular work week is less.

Nimble companies may be able to update their software to keep track of all of this accounting, but not every one of them will be able to do it. To make it more complicated, the benefit is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2025, when no one was keeping track of any of this. Since companies do not have to report overtime, it is up to employees to verify and document their eligibility and do all the bookkeeping correctly. Good luck with that for people with no training as bookkeepers or accountants. Could we imagine any fraud here, with people making all kinds of wild claims? We don't like imagining fraud, so we won't imagine any. Problem solved.

The no-tax-on-tips applies only to industries where tipping is common. Expect many lawsuits about which ones those are. If a supermarket puts a box at every checkout marked "tips," do those employees now qualify? And it applies only to tips that are reported and taxed. If waiters in restaurants get some tips in cash from diners and the boss says: "Just keep the tips and don't tell me about them," those tips are already not taxed so there is no refund. If waiters start reporting them to get the tax break, without understanding how all this works, they may be surprised to discover that they are suddenly liable for income tax (which they get back) but also for FICA and Medicare taxes, which they don't get back.

There is also a provision giving people a break on interest for car loans, but it is complicated and applies only to cars where the final assembly is in the U.S. What if a fully assembled car comes directly from a foreign country but a foxtail hanging from the rearview mirror is placed in the car by the dealer? Is that the final assembly? OK, what if the final assembly is just putting the wheels on? You see the problem? How are buyers supposed to know this? Well, you can put the VIN in the NHTSA database. Got that?

The real winners here are going to be the tax-prep professionals because many people who previously did their own taxes, possibly with some software, are not going to be able to figure all this out. They may like the idea of the tax breaks in the abstract, but when it comes to actually getting them, their enthusiasm may fade and with that, their plans to vote for the Republicans who devised the whole maze. (V)

Democrats Create New Program Focused on Marginal Voters

The DNC has launched a new program to specifically target likely Democratic voters who voted in 2020 but not in 2024. It will operate in swing states and swing congressional districts.

The initiative, which is called Local Listeners, is about training volunteers to get out there and contact marginal voters. The DNC hopes to contact at least a million such (non)voters. Part of it will be phone calls to the voters, part of it will be registering new voters, and part of it will be holding local in-person events.

The volunteers will get a 7-week training program on how to approach voters and how to have conversations with them about politics. So far the DNC has lined up 2,000 volunteers, but that number will grow over time. The program will work both ways. The volunteers will tell the voters about what the Democrats want to do that will help them (e.g., on affordability, health care, etc.) but also collect information from the voters about what they care about. This information will be fed back to the DNC so it can fine-tune the program to better address what these voters care about. For example, if marginal voters think voting is too difficult, the program can put more emphasis on how absentee voting works, that there are almost no lines during early voting, etc. (V)

Another House Republican, Barry Loudermilk, Is Retiring

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) consulted with God and they decided it is time for him (Loudermilk, not God) to retire. He is in a safe district (GA-11), which is R+12, and at 62 he could serve another 30 years if he wanted to. He probably sees the writing on the wall and thinks it says: "Being in the House minority is even less fun than being in the House majority, if that is possible." So far, 29 Republican House members, 22 Democratic House members, 6 Republican senators, and 5 Democratic senators have announced their retirements from seats that will not be filled by special elections this year. See the link in the menu to the left of the map above for the complete list. We update this as retirements are announced. Note that relatively few of the House retirements are in swing districts, roughly R+5 to D+5. (V)

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