House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News on Tuesday that he predicts more Democrats in the Lower Chamber will state their intent to retire before the midterm elections next year, following several retirement announcements last week.
Democrat Reps. David Price of North Carolina and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania announced Monday that they intend to retire before the next election, joining Democrat John Yarmuth of Kentucky, who chairs the House Budget Committee, who announced his intent to retire at the end of his current term last week. McCarthy predicted on Tuesday that more retirements will be announced after the upcoming holiday season.
"Once you get past Thanksgiving and members go home, and they’re Democrats and they’ve been challenged before and they’re going to get beat up, Congress is not that great," McCarthy said.
McCarthy said in an interview last August that redistricting means that "they’ve got new lines where they have to go meet new people and they’re still going to have the White House. They’re going to make a decision to retire, that’s the best time so they can go get another job. When we get that retirement number up higher, into double-digit figures, the whole thing becomes a different play."
"When you sit back and you look and you want to pinpoint when was the bellwether, when was the moment in time that you truly felt that you knew that the majority was in play and you had the capability of winning — when Ron Kind said that he was retiring," he said.
Democrat strategist Jesse Ferguson, who has worked with the DCCC in the past, told Fox News that "Not all retirements mean the same thing. These Democrats who retire from safe seats don't impact the path to hold the majority."
"Only members themselves know why they decide to retire. But if there’s an imbalance of retirements toward one party or another, it sometimes can tell us something about what the party with a lot of retirees thinks might happen in the midterms," Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of the nonpartisan political newsletter Sabato's Crystal Ball, told Fox News.
"House Democrats are heading into the midterms with record-breaking fundraising numbers, earlier than ever investments in organizing, and an agenda that’s wildly popular among battleground voters." DCCC spokesperson Chris Taylor told Fox News.
He added that "voters see Democratic members and candidates focused on rebooting the economy and getting folks back on the job," and said, "incumbent or not, we’re confident in our ability to win the House yet again."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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