"2026 is going to be a chance to answer a pretty strange question: What if one of the most powerful and theoretically coveted jobs in the world was actually one that very few wanted to keep?"
""There's a sense that you can't achieve anything in the American Congress right now," Faris says. "It's too broken. You have standard retirements compounded by a greater sense of the institution's dysfunction and weakness vis-à-vis the executive branch.""
"The congressional chaos is an opportunity for Democrats that will come mainly in November, when all 435 members of the House and a third of the Senate face their constituents in the 2026 midterms."
Record numbers of lawmakers are leaving Congress in 2026, with 11 senators and 47 House members announced as exiting. Departures include candidates seeking other offices, members sidelined by illness, and early resignations. There is a prevailing perception that Congress cannot achieve much and is weakened relative to the executive branch, with routine retirements amplified by institutional dysfunction. The resulting turnover creates an electoral opening for Democrats in November 2026, when all 435 House seats and one-third of the Senate are up. Comparisons to 2018 suggest conditions may be more favorable for Democratic gains, though significant political abnormality persists.
Read at Slate Magazine
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