Politics

The 2020 Congressional-Retirement Tracker

Congressional retirements are an early indicator of the political environment, and for the second consecutive election, more Republicans than Democrats are heading for the exit.

By Russell Berman
Kittibowornphatnon / Shutterstock / Katie Martin / The Atlantic

Updated at 11:24 a.m. ET on February 27, 2020.

Congressional retirements are an early indicator of the political environment, and for the second consecutive election, more Republicans than Democrats are heading for the exit.

In all, 26 GOP House members and four senators are forgoing reelection this year without declaring their candidacy for another office, while just seven Democrats in the House and one in the Senate are retiring outright. The Republican retirements are nearing the level the party saw in 2018, when 28 Republicans retired ahead of the midterms, foreshadowing the blue wave that swept in a Democratic House majority.

The announcements may indicate that GOP members have little confidence that their party will regain power in the House anytime soon. It’s a familiar dynamic: In 2006, after Democrats won back the House majority for the first time in a dozen years, Republicans saw a high number of retirements in the following term. The departures helped Democrats pick up even more seats in the 2008 election.

In the Senate, Republicans are losing four veteran committee chairmen: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, and Mike Enzi of Wyoming. While Alexander, Roberts, and Enzi represent solidly red states that will likely stay Republican in 2020, Isakson’s decision to resign at the end of 2019 for health reasons sets up a second Senate election in Georgia, where David Perdue is already up for reelection this year. The Democrat Stacey Abrams nearly won Georgia’s governorship in 2018, making the race for Isakson’s Senate seat potentially competitive this year—and one that could have big implications for control of the chamber.

In the House, the GOP departures point to a pair of ominous trends for the party: the loss of several members of its dwindling contingent of minority and women lawmakers, and an exodus from Texas (or what Democrats are already calling a “Texodus”).

The retirement of Representative Will Hurd of Texas stung—and surprised—Republicans the most. As the lone black Republican in the House, the former CIA officer, who represents a swing district along the border, was once seen as a rising star in the party at a time when it seemed Republicans would pursue bipartisan immigration legislation that could appeal to Latino voters. Yet Hurd decided to leave in the weeks after a series of racist tweets by the president appeared to crystallize a 2020 electoral strategy of mobilizing the GOP’s white base.

Read: Will Hurd could be the canary in the coal mine

Republicans were also taken aback by the departures of Representatives Susan Brooks of Indiana and Martha Roby of Alabama—two of just 13 GOP women in the House. Brooks is serving as the party’s House-candidate-recruitment chief, making her decision to leave even more difficult to swallow. (The retiring House Republicans do not include former Representative Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, who left Congress so early in his term—just two weeks after being sworn in—that a special election has already been held to replace him.)

Three of the six retiring Texans are getting out ahead of difficult reelection battles after narrowly winning in 2018. Their exits, along with former Representative Beto O’Rourke’s surprisingly strong Senate bid in 2018, are a reason Democrats are bullish on their chances of picking up even more House seats in Texas, flipping one of its two state legislative chambers, and possibly even turning it blue on the presidential level in 2020.

Data sources: Each district’s presidential-election results are from the Daily Kos. House and Senate election results are from the Associated Press.

Senate Republicans Retiring Outright

Lamar Alexander, Tennessee

  • 2016 presidential election: +26.15 Trump
  • 2014 Senate election: +30.1 Alexander

One of the Senate’s few remaining bipartisan dealmakers, Alexander announced late in 2018 that he would retire after three terms. Over a 40-year career in politics, Alexander had previously served as governor of Tennessee and education secretary under President George H. W. Bush. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996. In recent years, Alexander has earned a reputation for working with liberal Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington from his perch as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Tennessee is deeply Republican: Democrats fell well short in their bid to pick up retiring Republican Senator Bob Corker’s seat in 2018, making it difficult to see how they could create a competitive race in 2020.

Pat Roberts, Kansas

  • 2016 presidential election: +20.5 Trump
  • 2014 Senate election: +10.8 Roberts

Roberts’s retirement after four terms, which he announced in January 2019, has set off a nervous recruitment season among Kansas Republicans after a moderate Democrat captured the governorship of the reliably red state in 2018. The Republican who lost that race, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, is running for Roberts’s seat, prompting the GOP to cast around for a less radioactive candidate. The dream candidate for establishment Republicans is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former Kansas congressman who hasn’t quite slammed the door, despite initially saying no to a run.

Johnny Isakson, Georgia

  • 2016 presidential election: +5.1 Trump
  • 2016 Senate election: +13.8 Isakson

Isakson retired at the end of 2019, citing various health challenges that include Parkinson’s disease. The 74-year-old former chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee had been reelected to a third term in 2016. Republican Governor Brian Kemp appointed businesswoman Kelly Loeffler as his replacement, and there will be a special election in 2020 to fill the remaining two years of Isakson’s term. With Senator David Perdue already up for reelection, Democrats are expected to make a run for at least one of the two Senate races in Georgia, an emerging battleground they’re also eyeing in the presidential race.

Mike Enzi, Wyoming

  • 2016 presidential election: +46.3 Trump
  • 2014 Senate election: +54.7 Enzi

The fourth-term senator and chairman of the Budget Committee announced in May 2019 that he would not seek a fifth term. The big question in Wyoming is not whether Republicans will hold the seat, but whether Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, will make a run for it. Cheney wouldn’t have the race to herself, as former Representative Cynthia Lummis has already jumped in.

Senate Democrats Retiring Outright

Tom Udall, New Mexico

  • 2016 presidential election: +8.3 Clinton
  • 2014 Senate election: +10.8 Udall

Udall’s decision to retire after just two terms, which he announced in March 2019, was something of a surprise, and it will, at least for now, end a decades-long Udall political dynasty in the West. New Mexico has turned pretty solidly blue in the past decade, and Representative Ben Ray Luján, a member of the House Democratic leadership, is the favorite to win Udall’s seat in 2020.

House Republicans Retiring Outright

Will Hurd, Texas’s 23rd Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +3.4 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +0.5 Hurd

Hurd’s decision in August 2019 to forgo reelection was the retirement bombshell of 2019. A 43-year-old former CIA officer in just his third term, he was considered a rising star in the party and is the only black Republican currently serving in the House. The announcement shocked GOP operatives, who saw it as an ominous sign for the party’s direction under Donald Trump. Hurd was no shoo-in for reelection, however: He won his 2018 race by just 1,000 votes, and his exit makes the district along the Mexico border a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats.

Greg Walden, Oregon’s Second Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +20.1 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +16.9 Walden

Walden is one of the senior-most Republicans to announce his retirement so far. First elected in 1998, he’s the top GOP lawmaker on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, and he served as its chairman before Democrats took control of the House in 2019. He previously headed up the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm.

James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin’s Fifth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +20.1 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +24 Sensenbrenner

First elected in 1978, Sensenbrenner is the second-longest-serving Republican in Congress. He served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was an original sponsor of the Patriot Act in 2001, and has played a prominent role debating legislation on immigration, criminal justice, and voting rights for years.

Peter King, New York’s Second Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +6.1 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +6.2 King

First elected to Congress in 1992, King is a former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. His politics have defied easy characterization: moderate on spending, pro-gun control, and a hawk on national security and immigration. King is a loud GOP critic of the Tea Party, but has been an ally of President Donald Trump. With his name off the ballot, Democrats are likely to target his suburban district on Long Island.

Susan Brooks, Indiana’s Fifth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +11.8 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +13.6 Brooks

Brooks similarly dealt the GOP an unexpected blow with her retirement announcement in June 2019. The former federal prosecutor had only arrived in the House in 2013. Brooks also heads the National Republican Congressional Committee’s recruitment efforts—making her decision not to run a particularly awkward one for the party. And while the seat has been safely Republican for years, Democrats are eyeing the district in the hope that they can peel off affluent suburban voters turned off by Trump.

Martha Roby, Alabama’s Second Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +31.9 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +23 Roby

Roby’s decision to leave Congress at the age of 43 deprives Republicans of another young female lawmaker who was on the rise. Roby was first elected in 2010, but struggled in the Trump era: She withdrew her endorsement of the then GOP nominee in October 2016 after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, but she came around once he became president, and sought—and received—his endorsement in her reelection bid in 2018.

Sean Duffy, Wisconsin’s Seventh Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +20.4 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +21.6 Duffy

The onetime Real World star resigned from Congress in September 2019, after he and his wife learned that the baby girl they were expecting would be born with a heart condition. Duffy was first elected to the House in 2010 and became a reliable Republican vote. Though his northwest-Wisconsin district backed Barack Obama in 2008, it swung heavily to Trump in 2016. Democrats, however, might have a shot in a special election for the remainder of Duffy’s term in May.

John Shimkus, Illinois’s 15th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +46.2 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +41.8

First elected in 1996, Shimkus had risen to a senior position on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Republicans should easily hold this deep-red Illinois seat.

Bill Flores, Texas’s 17th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +17.5 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +15.5 Flores

A former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Flores is leaving one term earlier than his self-imposed limit of six. He was first elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, when he defeated a longtime Democratic incumbent by the largest margin of any GOP challenger in the nation.

Rob Woodall, Georgia’s Seventh Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +6.3 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +0.2 Woodall

First elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, Woodall won his 2018 race by just 433 votes and decided five terms in Congress were enough. He had chaired the conservative Republican Study Committee for a term and was a senior member of the House Budget Committee. After coming so close in 2018, Democrats are looking to snatch this suburban district northeast of Atlanta in 2020.

Paul Mitchell, Michigan’s Tenth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +32.2 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +25.3 Mitchell

Mitchell is a classic example of a person who gets to Congress and quickly realizes it’s not for him. The Republican announced his retirement barely one quarter of the way through his second term, less than three years after he’d spent a chunk of his personal fortune to win his first election. Coincidentally, the last Republican to have such a short stint by his own choosing was also from Michigan: Representative Dave Trott, who left in 2017 after just two terms.

Pete Olson, Texas’s 22nd Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +7.9 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +4.9 Olson

Olson is one of four Republicans in the Texas delegation to announce his retirement ahead of 2020, part of a wave the Democrats have labeled the “Texodus.” He was first elected in 2008 and survived his closest reelection fight in 2018. Like Hurd’s, his district is one the Democrats will hope to flip this year.

Kenny Marchant, Texas’s 24th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +6.2 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +3.1 Marchant

The Dallas-area Republican won his race in 2018 by just three points—a far closer margin than in any election in his previous seven terms. He announced in August 2019 that he would retire in 2020, creating yet another hotly contested open seat in Texas.

Mike Conaway, Texas’s 11th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +58.7 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +61.7 Conaway

Unlike the other Republican retirees in Texas, Conaway is not leaving Congress in advance of a difficult reelection bid; the eight-term former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee cruised to victory in 2018, but he has seen his power diminished by the GOP’s self-imposed term limits on committee chairmen and the loss of its majority. Conaway had briefly led the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, but he had told folks back home that he would leave once he was no longer in a leadership position in Congress.

Rob Bishop, Utah’s First Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +27.3 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +36.7 Bishop

Bishop has served in the House since 2003 and led the House Natural Resources Committee until Democrats took control of the chamber in 2018. Republicans should have little trouble retaining this safe seat, which Bishop won easily every two years.

Mac Thornberry, Texas’s 13th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +63 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +64.62 Thornberry

Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, is choosing to leave after 13 terms—having run up against the GOP’s self-imposed term limit for committee chairs. He’s the sixth Texas Republican who has announced plans to retire in 2020, but this ruby-red district should be an easy hold for the GOP.

Chris Collins, New York’s 27th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +24.5 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +0.38 Collins

Collins quickly resigned from Congress after reports emerged that he would likely plead guilty to insider-trading charges. The first sitting member of Congress to endorse Trump in the 2016 race, Collins was charged in 2018 with allegedly dumping stock in a pharmaceutical company before information about that company was made public—yet he still narrowly won reelection that year. Without a candidate accused of a felony on the ballot, Republicans should be in a good position to retain control of this seat.

Francis Rooney, Florida’s 19th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +22.1 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +24.6 Rooney

Rooney in October 2019 became the first House Republican to say he might vote to impeach Trump (he ultimately did not), and then promptly announced his retirement the next day. The 65-year-old businessman told Fox News he was “tired of the intense partisanship.” He’s leaving a safe Republican district in south Florida after just two terms.

Tom Graves, Georgia’s 14th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +52.9 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +53 Graves

Graves, 49, is leaving after a decade in Congress, having first been elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave. Though initially a conservative thorn in the side of GOP leadership, he became more of a loyalist over the years. His deeply conservative district in the northwest corner of Georgia should be a safe hold for Republicans.

George Holding, North Carolina’s Second Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: N/A, district redrawn

  • 2018 House election: N/A, district redrawn

A dramatically redrawn district effectively forced Holding out of his seat. After a North Carolina court upheld a new congressional map aimed at reducing partisan gerrymandering, Holding found himself in a heavily Democratic district that he likely could not have won if he tried. He has served four terms and is not ruling out a future run in a friendly district.

Duncan Hunter, California’s 50th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +14.8 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +3.4 Hunter

Hunter will resign from Congress in mid-January following his guilty plea to a felony campaign-finance crime of stealing more than $250,000 in campaign funds. He is the second House Republican this term, after Chris Collins, to resign from Congress after a guilty plea. (Both men were among the first backers of Trump’s 2016 campaign.) Hunter’s exit will likely make it easier for Republicans to hold on to his San Diego–area seat in the fall.

Ted Yoho, Florida’s Third Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +16 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +15.4 Yoho

Yoho is yet another House Republican retiring after a relatively short tenure in Congress. The colorful conservative said he was honoring his own pledge, made when he first ran in 2012, to serve no more than four terms. Republicans should hold this reliably red district west of Jacksonville.

Mark Walker, North Carolina’s Sixth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: N/A, district redrawn

  • 2018 House election: N/A, district redrawn

Like George Holding, Walker is being squeezed out after just three terms by a redrawn congressional map that makes his district an easy win for Democrats this year. A member of the GOP leadership and the former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Walker is not done with politics: He considered challenging GOP Senator Thom Tillis in a 2020 primary but is now mulling a run for Senate in 2022, when Senator Richard Burr plans to retire.

Mark Meadows, North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +17.3 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +20.3 Meadows

Meadows’s surprising decision not to seek reelection in 2020 will end a short but influential tenure in the House. He arrived in Congress in 2013 and quickly became a conservative thorn in the side of GOP leadership; two years later, he co-founded the House Freedom Caucus. Meadows has been one of Trump’s most prominent congressional allies, and he told Politico that he could vacate his seat early if a job in the administration were to open up. He’s the third North Carolina Republican to retire this cycle, although his seat should stay in Republican control.

Phil Roe, Tennessee’s First Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +57 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +56.1 Roe

Roe, 74, has represented one of the nation’s most Republican districts since 2009. A doctor, he played a prominent role in his party’s debates over health care and served as the top Republican on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Ralph Abraham, Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +29.4 Trump

  • 2018 House election: +36.5 Abraham

Abraham is the rare member of Congress who chose to stick to his campaign pledge of a self-imposed term limit: He’s leaving the House after just three terms. He made a bid for higher office last year, losing a race to unseat Louisiana’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards.

House Democrats Retiring Outright

Nita Lowey, New York’s 17th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +20.2 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +76 Lowey

Lowey, 82, is retiring at the peak of her power: In January 2019, she became chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee and the first woman to lead the influential panel. She’ll be leaving her safely Democratic district, which covers New York City’s northern suburbs, after more than 30 years in Congress.

José Serrano, New York’s 15th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +88.9 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +92 Serrano

For nearly 30 years, Serrano has represented a South Bronx district that, at various times, has held the distinction of being the poorest, the most Democratic, and the smallest geographically in the country. He is currently the longest-serving Hispanic member of Congress and a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, but he announced his retirement due to the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Like many other New York City races, this one will be decided in the Democratic primary.

Dave Loebsack, Iowa’s Second Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +4.1 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +12.2 Loebsack

Loebsack’s retirement after seven terms could give Republicans a decent shot at picking up this open seat in a district Trump carried in 2016. The longtime political-science professor won his 2018 race by 12 points; a Democrat looking to succeed him could find difficulty with Trump at the top of the ticket.

Susan Davis, California’s 53rd Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +34.9 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +38.2 Davis

Davis has represented a heavily Democratic district in San Diego since 2001. Though she didn’t quite achieve the seniority to become a committee chairwoman, she is a high-ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and the Administration Committee.

Katie Hill, California’s 25th Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +6.7 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +8.8 Hill

Hill announced in October 2019 that she would resign, after the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into allegations that she had an improper relationship with a member of her congressional staff. (She had already acknowledged an inappropriate relationship with a campaign staffer.) Hill defeated an incumbent Republican in 2018, and was a prominent member of the Democrats’ majority-making freshman class. Though her district is trending Democratic, Republicans are likely to make an aggressive push to retake it in a special election.

Pete Visclosky, Indiana’s First Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +12.6 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +30.2 Visclosky

The dean of Indiana’s congressional delegation, Visclosky is retiring after 35 years in the House. He now heads the powerful defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and becomes the third senior Democrat on the panel who will call it quits after this year. He has only once been held to less than 60 percent of the vote in his 18 terms, and Democrats should retain his seat in 2020.

Denny Heck, Washington’s Tenth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +11.4 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +23 Heck

Heck is leaving after just four terms, saying in a statement that as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, the countless hours he spent on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and, more recently, on the impeachment inquiry “have left my soul weary.” “Civility is out. Compromise is out. All or nothing is in,” he wrote.

House Republicans Running for Another Office in 2020

Bradley Byrne, Alabama’s First Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +29.4 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +26.4 Byrne

Byrne plans to give up his House seat in the hope of moving up to the Senate: He’s running in the Republican primary to take on Democratic Senator Doug Jones in what is easily the GOP’s best pickup opportunity in the Senate. Byrne has competition, however, in Roy Moore, who narrowly lost the race in 2017 amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against young girls earlier in his life. And former Senator Jeff Sessions has also jumped into the ring to reclaim the seat gave up to become Trump’s first attorney general.

Greg Gianforte, Montana’s at-Large District

  • 2016 presidential election: +20.2
  • 2018 House election: +4.7 Gianforte

Montana’s sole congressman is best known for assaulting a reporter on the eve of his victory in a House special election in 2017. Gianforte, a wealthy tech executive, won that race anyway, and a narrow election to a full term in 2018. But he’s running for governor in 2020, his second go at the office after losing to Democrat Steve Bullock in 2016. Regardless of how he does this time, his exit from Congress could make his House seat an easier hold for Republicans.

Roger Marshall, Kansas’s First Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +45 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +36.2 Marshall

Marshall is running in a crowded primary for the seat that Senator Pat Roberts is vacating in retirement. The 59-year-old obstetrician is in just his second term in the House, beating conservative Representative Tim Huelskamp, a thorn in the side of party leadership, in a 2016 primary. The district, which covers more than half of Kansas, is the reddest in the state.

Paul Cook, California’s Eighth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +15.1 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +20 Cook

Cook, 76, is leaving the House after four terms and will try to serve closer to home: He plans to run for a seat on the Board of Supervisors in San Bernardino County. His Republican district stretches to the Nevada border and is one of the largest geographically in California.

Doug Collins, Georgia’s Ninth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +58.5 Trump
  • 2018 House election: +59 Collins

Collins is looking to parlay the attention he received as Trump’s lead House impeachment defender into a Senate seat in Georgia. But the fourth-term congressman will have to go up against the Republican establishment, which is backing Senator Kelly Loeffler, who was recently appointed to the seat until a special election is held in November. Collins’s House seat, however, is not in danger for the GOP.

House Democrats Running for Another Office in 2020

Ben Ray Luján, New Mexico’s Third Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +25.1 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +32.2 Luján

Luján is a top contender to take the retiring Udall’s Senate seat in New Mexico, 12 years after he took Udall’s House seat when the Democrat advanced across the Capitol. Though he now owns the title of assistant speaker in the Democratic leadership, Luján rose to stardom as the chairman of the party’s congressional arm in 2018, when Democrats picked up 40 seats and easily recaptured the House majority.

Joseph Kennedy III, Massachusetts’s Fourth Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +24.2 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: Uncontested

The grandson of Robert F. Kennedy is vacating his House seat after four terms to challenge Senator Edward Markey in the Democratic primary. His decision sets up the highest-profile Democratic primary in the Senate, although Kennedy’s House seat should be an easy hold for his party.

Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii’s Second Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +31.8 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +54.8 Gabbard

Gabbard announced in late October 2019 that she would not run for reelection to her House seat so that she could focus on her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her decision to leave Congress after four terms was not, however, a sign that her long-shot White House campaign was taking off; instead, it was likely because an aggressive primary challenge from a Hawaii state senator had made it far from a sure thing that Gabbard could win back her seat even if she wanted to.

Died in Office

Representative Elijah Cummings, Maryland’s Seventh Congressional District

  • 2016 presidential election: +55.6 Clinton
  • 2018 House election: +55.2 Cummings

Cummings’s death in October 2019 at age 68 opened up his Baltimore congressional district for the first time in more than 20 years. His widow, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, is reportedly eyeing a run for the seat in a special election, which Democrats are virtually assured of winning.

Saahil Desai contributed to this report.

Russell Berman is a staff writer at The Atlantic.