Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) latest to retire, as incumbents’ exits match previous year’s count, with notable Senate retirements.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) latest to retire, as incumbents’ exits match previous year’s count, with notable Senate retirements.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) was the last incumbent to announce their retirement. Fifty-three members of Congress—eight senators and 45 representatives—have announced they will not seek re-election this year.
That’s the same number that was reported in our August 21 update on congressional incumbents not seeking re-election. Since then, there have been no new retirement announcements. The last incumbent to announce their retirement was Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) on June 14.
On August 16, 2024, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) announced that he selected George Helmy to serve as the interim senator for Sen. Bob Menendez‘s (D) seat, effective September 9, 2024, until the winner of the November general election is certified. Helmy is not included in this analysis because he was not the incumbent at the time of the candidate filing deadline. Additionally, Ballotpedia does not include incumbents leaving office early in our analysis of incumbents not running for re-election.
In 2018, 55 incumbents retired from Congress. In the two election years following 2018, the total number of retirements decreased to 40 in 2020, then increased to 55 in 2022. An average of 38.68 members retired from Congress each election year between 1930 and 2022.
Between January 2011 and September 2024, Ballotpedia tracked 354 announcements from members of the U.S. House and Senate who announced they would not run for re-election. If we look at this data by month, January had the highest number of announcements of any month at 67, while June had the fewest at 12.
In an election year, the highest number of announcements occurred in January, with 47, whereas September had no announcements. During an off year, November had the highest number of announcements, at 41, while June had the fewest, at nine.
In the House, 45 incumbents are not seeking re-election this year, which is higher than the average of 33.28 House retirements each election year between 1930 and 2022. Among the representatives not seeking re-election in 2024, 12 (three Republicans and nine Democrats) are running for the U.S. Senate, two (one Democrat and one Republican) are running for state attorney general, and two (one Democrat and one Republican) are running for governor. Additionally, one Democrat ran for President of the United States. Furthermore, 28 representatives (12 Democrats and 16 Republicans) are retiring from public office. When comparing the 45 House retirements to the last three cycles, there were 49 House retirements in 2022, 36 in 2020, and 52 in 2018.
2024 U.S. Senate retirements
On the Senate side, eight incumbents are not seeking re-election this year. Between 1930 and 2022, there was an average of 5.4 Senate retirements each election year. The eight senators who are not seeking re-election this year are Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).
The number of senators not running for re-election this year is higher than the three previous election years. Six senators did not seek re-election in 2022, four didn’t in 2020, and three didn’t in 2018.
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