Congressional Career Decisions in the 2018 Congressional Midterm Elections

Abstract

Although we prefer to think of congressional turnover as being electorally driven and based on the choices of voters, in recent decades retirements/resignations have been a larger contributor to change in the composition of both chambers of Congress than have electoral defeats of incumbents. In this article, we consider the impact of retirements (and other forms of non-electoral exits) on the 2018 congressional midterms, focusing primarily on the House of Representatives. After reviewing the relevant (and limited) literature, we provide a descriptive overview of congressional retirements (including the unusual retirement of a comparatively young speaker of the House and almost two dozen GOP committee and subcommittee chairs) then examine the extent of voluntary retirements in this electoral cycle against historical patterns, and explore the effects of different retirements (i.e., progressive ambition versus retirement from public life). Using multivariate models, we examine which factors correlate significantly with retirement decisions, test for a partisan differential in retirement rates, and compare the rates at which the parties are capable of replacing retirees with co-partisans. Our analysis allows us to consider the ongoing importance of members' career decisions for the composition of and the partisan balance of power in the U. S. Congress. Within the context of 2018 specifically, these career decisions had substantial implications for partisan control of the House, experience and leadership within the House Republican conference, and entrance of female members into Congress and toward higher office.

Institutional Attachments and Patterns of Ambition in State Legislatures

“…Furthermore, we control for whether the legislator is a Republican, since the literature has sometimes found differing patterns of ambition among Democrats and Republicans, with Republicans more likely to retire (Brant and Overby 2021; Gilmour and Rothstein 1993) and seek higher office (Ang and Overby 2008), although some of those findings may be attributable to studying Congress during the long‐standing Democratic majority of the late twentieth century (Kiewiet and Zeng 1993). In state legislatures, support for this pattern may stem from the fact that Republicans are more likely to have outside careers, and thus they may generically value legislative service less (Maddox 2004).…”