Since President Trump returned to the White House this year, a record number of members are eyeing the exits as the Republican-led Congress has largely ceded its power to Trump's vision of the country.
With just under 15 months to go until the 2026 midterms, nine senators and 21 House members have announced they don't plan to run for reelection, each a modern record for this point before the election, according to an NPR analysis of congressional campaign data since 2017.
As of Aug. 12, there will be 470 congressional seats on the ballot in 2026: all 435 House seats, 33 regularly scheduled Senate contests and two special elections to fill the remainder of Senate terms in Ohio and Florida.
Digging into the data of congressional retirements and relocations over the last decade since Trump first took office in 2017, this year's midterm cycle is notable, too, for the surge in members of Congress looking to leave Washington and serve as governor of their state.
This includes three sitting senators: Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Colorado Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet.
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The more typical path is for a governor to continue their time in politics by running to be one of their state's senators. Currently, 12 senators are a part of this former governor caucus, including both Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, Florida Sen. Rick Scott and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who is retiring at the end of this term.
Jessica Taylor, the Senate and Governors editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said this cycle's inversion of the typical governor-to-Senate pipeline is the highest the country has seen in at least 90 years. One potential reason is the partisan gridlock that has hampered the power of Congress.
"In this current political environment that we're in, I think it just speaks to the polarization," Taylor said. "The Senate used to be the world's greatest deliberative body, but a lot of those people that worked across the aisle have retired or been defeated."
It's also a move that carries a high degree of success. According to Ballotpedia's research, 10 of 14 incumbent or ex-senators have won their gubernatorial campaigns in the last 40 years, compared to 27 of 56 governors who ran for Senate.
This year, it's also notable to look at governors who have opted not to run for Senate in key races, like popular Republicans Brian Kemp of Georgia and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.
Some of these figures may have eyes toward the wide-open 2028 presidential primaries on both sides of the aisle as reasons to avoid running for Senate, Taylor adds, "but there's no doubt that just Washington is a less attractive place than it was a few decades ago."
On the House side so far, there are nine representatives, five Democrats and four Republicans, looking to make the jump to the Senate, also higher than some recent election cycles. They include Georgia Republican Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins, who are looking to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and Alabama Republican Rep. Barry Moore, who announced Tuesday his run to fill the seat Tuberville will vacate to run for governor.
There are also eight House representatives — all Republican — running for governor.
Taylor said another reason some members of Congress might be choosing to run for governor is to raise their political profile in a way that holding that position might not have in the past.
"We've seen a lot of governors, I think, especially in the wake of COVID, that have been able to raise their profiles through media," she said. "I think a lot of people before COVID probably didn't think about who their governor was as much. I think after COVID, more people are paying attention to governors."
Departures keep growing in the Trump era
Of the 535 lawmakers that were in the 115th Congress that coincided with the start of Trump's first term in 2017, just over half are no longer in office. So far, all of the people who have announced retirement from public office after the current 119th Congress term are from this class of lawmakers.
In total, there have been nearly 900 people who have served in the House or Senate during the Trump and Biden administrations.
Seventy-five members of Congress joined some time after 2017 and are no longer there, including several placeholder members who were appointed to hold vacant seats until the next election, lawmakers drawn out of their seats in the latest round of redistricting and more controversial figures like the expelled former Rep. George Santos.
There are lawmakers who resigned to join a new presidential administration, like former Oklahoma Republican senator-turned-NASA-administrator Jim Bridenstine, who served in Trump's first term, former senators-turned-vice presidents Kamala Harris and JD Vance, and former Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who serves as secretary of state and holds numerous acting roles, including national security advisor, in the Trump White House.
The most common form of departure for members of Congress in the Trump era by and large has been retirement, followed by losing in the general election, running for a different office or getting ousted in a primary.
Taylor says there are two big reasons that lawmakers might want to leave Washington nowadays: having a life beyond Congress and because of the additional scrutiny on the age and performance of older lawmakers, exacerbated by questions about former President Joe Biden's health during the 2024 election.
Who else might leave?
When Biden was president, more Democrats left Congress than Republicans, and during Trump's first term the opposite was true. So far this year, the president's push to exert power over Congress, its budgetary authority and other changes may entice Republicans who aren't fully on board to hang up their hat, Cook Political Report's Jessica Taylor said.
"Even if you are in the majority, you're having to continually fight," she said. "And I do think, there's a fight within the Republican Party that if you are more of a moderate, continually having to bump up against Trump and his allies is exhausting."
The August recess for the House and Senate is a time when lawmakers return home to their districts and get a taste of what their constituents — and polling data — say about the popularity of the current administration and how much of an uphill battle they could face in a reelection campaign.
Historically, the time between that recess and when candidates begin to face deadlines to qualify for primary ballots sees an uptick in those who decide to add their name to the retirement list.
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