Ahead of the crucial 2022 midterm elections, nearly 50 members of the House of Representatives have decided not to seek re-election.

Of that figure, roughly two-thirds are Democrats, a sign some Republicans believe means they will have strong gaines in 2022 and retake control of at least one chamber of Congress next year. 

What You Need To Know

  • Ahead of the crucial 2022 midterm elections, nearly 50 members of the House of Representatives have decided not to seek re-election

  • One such member is Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, the first Vietnamese-American woman and second Vietnamese-American ever to serve in Congress; At one point, Murphy was considering running for Senate, but shocked the political world when she announced she was not seeking re-election

  • Of that figure, roughly two-thirds are Democrats, a sign some Republicans believe means they will have strong gains in 2022 and retake control of at least one chamber of Congress next year

  • That said, Democrats are making surprising inroads in redistricting, in part thanks to drawing maps in states like New York, where the party holds a legislative supermajority, and court rulings overturning Republican gerrymandering in states like Ohio and North Carolina

One such member is Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a leading moderate voice in the Democratic caucus. Murphy, the first Vietnamese-American woman and second Vietnamese-American ever to serve in Congress, had at one point considered running for Senate earlier this year, but shocked the political world when she announced her departure from Congress.

“I’ve never felt that this was supposed to be a career thing, I believe in a citizen Congress,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy.

Florida Republicans were expecting to target Murphy’s 7th Congressional District in redistricting, making it more difficult for her to win a fourth term. She said that was not a factor in her choice. 

“It hasn’t weighed on my decision because I have won tough races before and I always overperform Democrats,” she said in an interview with Spectrum News in her Capitol Hill office. 

Murphy is one of 29 Democrats not seeking re-election, the highest such figure since 1996. Eighteen Republicans have said they are not running again.

It's worth noting that many are seeking higher office, including fellow Florida Rep. Val Demings, who is challenging Sen. Marco Rubio for his seat in the Senate, and New York Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is running for governor.

The number of Democratic departures exceeds the 17 that stepped down or ran for another office in the 2010 cycle, when Republicans picked up 63 seats.  

“The number of retirements is high. I think some of it can be chalked up to, there are some Democratic members that don’t want to serve in this environment,” said Kyle Kondik with the University of Virginia Center for Politics. 

According to an analysis by Spectrum News, at least seven Democrats are vacating vulnerable seats where they won by single-digit margins last election. 13 of the 29 retiring members are over the age of 70 years old, 15 of them have served in Congress at least 15 years and eight are running for another office.  

Experts say even more retirements may be coming.

“It may be that this process got back loaded a little bit because of redistricting and there have been delays and there are still some states that are in the process of redistricting,” Kondik said. 

“We saw a redistricting induced retirement recently, Jim Cooper in Nashville, that left Cooper without a good district to run in, which is why he retired. You could very well see more of that,” he added. 

That said, Democrats are making surprising inroads in redistricting, in part thanks to drawing maps in states like New York, where the party holds a legislative supermajority, and court rulings overturning Republican gerrymandering in states like Ohio and North Carolina. 

Republicans believe that the Democratic departures demonstrate that they will take back control of the House, and potentially even the Senate, in 2022.

“You look at historic retirements by the Democrats in the House, it shows how well we are going to do in the House and the Senate,” Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Spectrum News.  “What happens is if we win more House races, we actually win more Senate races, because more Republicans come out and vote for us."

Rep. Murphy beat Republican incumbent Rep. John Mica to win her House seat six years ago, helping to lay the groundwork for the Democrats' takeover of the House in 2018. 

While she has not ruled out another run for office in the future, Murphy told Spectrum News she’d like to focus on her family. 

“I am a working parent just like anybody else and sometimes working parents have to make decisions about their professional aspirations and their personal family responsibilities,” she said.

The former national security specialist at the Pentagon has a reputation for working across party lines and standing up to party leadership. She was instrumental in calling for a standalone House vote on the President’s infrastructure package. As a result, she said, she’s also faced death threats and even hostility within her party. 

“I would be disingenuous if I didn’t acknowledge it has been difficult at times. Particularly because politics have become so vitriolic and so personal,” Murphy explained. 

“I was really surprised at the intensity of the attacks from the Democratic party. Some of the tactics that were masqueraded as first amendment rights were just straight harassment,” she said.

There’s another piece of the retirement equation: The number of Centrist members on both sides of the aisle, like Murphy, are dwindling at a rapid pace.

“I worry a lot because I do believe that the American people broadly are somewhere in the middle, either center left or center right,” she said. 

“Increasingly because of gerrymandering and the people we are sending here are representing more of the extremes, that’s certainly isn’t healthy for getting things done.”