Dem
47
GOP
53
Announcements for House retirements are running ahead of 2022 and 2018. There have been 52 retirements announced so far, vs. 41 in 2022 and 46 in 2018 at this point. Midterms are usually referendums on the president, even more so when his party controls the whole show so he can't blame the nasty other party in Congress for not carrying out his program. The Wall Street Journal has broken down why members are retiring into six overlapping categories of what is causing all the retirements. The Venn diagram looks like this:
The biggest single reason, with 24 members, is that they are running for another office. But that raises the question of why they are running for another office. In some cases, the opportunity just presented itself. Rep Haley Stevens (D-MI) is running for the Senate because there is a vacancy. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is running for attorney general because there is an open seat there but also because he has crossed Trump. Another big group consists of the 20 members who are just old and realize their time has come and being in the House is no fun at all, not even in the majority. A few others have specific reasons, like Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who gave up her leadership position because she expected to become ambassador to the United Nations and then Trump pulled the rug out from under her.
So each member has one or more reasons, but the bottom line is that there are abnormally many retirements so far and there could be a few more. And primaries are just heating up. Some members may retire because the voters made the decision on their behalves. (V)