Retirements hurt Democrats’ House prospects

The Democratic quest to win the House majority has always been something close to mission impossible. A procession of lawmakers opting for retirement is pushing the prize even further beyond the party’s grasp.

Seventeen seats shy of the majority and confronting an electoral landscape tilted against them, Democrats have virtually no room for error in the November midterms. Yet the problems they’re encountering of late are coming from within their own ranks.

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Since December, four Democratic incumbents have announced they will not be seeking reelection to districts that contain large proportions of Republican voters. Of those, Democrats freely admit that two seats — one held by Jim Matheson of Utah, the other by Mike McIntyre of North Carolina — are almost certain to shift to Republican hands. In the two other districts, both in New York, Democrats will be forced to wage hard-fought and potentially costly races to defend seats that are in their column.

In each instance, the absence of an incumbent lawmaker — with a roster of donors and track record of winning elections — has left a much-needed seat deeply vulnerable to GOP takeover.

Other lawmaker retirements favor Democrats. At least five Republican incumbents are vacating seats for which Democrats are expected to compete aggressively. Democrats argue that four of them — one in suburban Philadelphia, one in New Jersey, one in Iowa and one in Northern Virginia — are now tossups because a Republican is no longer seeking reelection.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) contends that with more Republican incumbents vacating competitive seats than Democratic ones, the party has the upper hand.

“You just have to go by the numbers,” he said.

Yet in a year when Democrats need everything to break their way, that hasn’t happened. Prior to the onset of the congressional retirement season, some Democrats said they needed a disproportionate number of departures to come from the ranks of swing district Republicans. Instead, many Democrats acknowledge it’s been a wash at best — and at worst, a slight net negative.

“It was always going to be uphill to win the House,” said one Democratic operative who is closely involved in the party’s effort to win control of the lower congressional chamber. “Every retirement makes the hill feel more mountainous.”

Some Democrats worry there are more departures to come. There is widespread concern that Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, will step down rather than face a tough race for the conservative seat he’s held for more than two decades.

A Peterson spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on the congressman’s reelection plans.

Retirements, of course, aren’t Democrats’ only hurdle this year. Many in the party are deeply worried that the fumbled Obamacare rollout will hurt their candidates. Others fret about the president’s declining poll numbers. Still others are wary of the “six-year itch,” the historical tendency for the party occupying the White House in the sixth year of a president’s tenure to lose seats.

Republicans can barely contain their glee at the Democratic departures, calling them more evidence that the House will remain in GOP hands for another two years. Some Democratic incumbents, such as George Miller of California and Jim Moran of Virginia, are leaving safe seats they’ve held for decades. Republicans argue the departures show that the longtime Democratic lawmakers no longer see a path to getting back into the majority and are bailing out now.

“George Miller, Jim Moran, these are longtime, very active, competent legislators. I have to believe that if they thought it was [soon] that they could get gavels back, they would not be leaving,” said Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman. “If they thought they could be chairmen again, you’d probably stick it out another term.”