Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Greene is one of nearly 40 current members of the House who are either leaving before their current two-year terms end, or who have said they won't seek re-election in next year's midterms.
And the surge in retirements may impact next year's midterm elections, when Republicans are aiming to protect their fragile House majority.
"We're above average," noted David Wasserman, a senior editor and elections analyst at the non-partisan political handicapper "The Cook Report," as he pointed to the pace of House retirement announcements so far this cycle.
And we've still got five weeks left until the calendar hits 2026.
Waves of retirement announcements traditionally come in the final month or two, amid the holiday season, in the year before congressional elections.
The party breakdown so far on the retirements: 16 Democrats and 22 Republicans.
A handful of the Democrats headed for the exits are in their 70s and 80s and retiring after long tenures in the House. The most prominent is 85-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But in a continued sign that the bitter partisanship in the House has made the lower chamber of Congress far from a pleasant work environment, most of the members who are passing on re-election are much younger.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., listens during his news conference on his challenger Tony Vargas with Nebraska state legislators in his campaign office in Omaha, Neb., on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
"I think that’s where this hyper-partisan ugliness fits in. The thought of winning and going through another two years of this was not a fulfilling thought," added Bacon, who earlier this year announced he wouldn't seek re-election in 2026.
Bacon won nine heavily contested GOP primary battles and general elections over the past decade in his swing district.
But the retired Air Force general and moderate Republican who represents an Omaha, Nebraska-anchored congressional district told Fox News Digital last week that "the fire wasn’t there" anymore.
Former Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire, who retired a year ago after serving a dozen years in the House, said the dysfunction and political tension in Congress was "definitely a factor" in her decision to leave.
"It had gotten so much more difficult over 12 years to work across the aisle," Kuster told Fox News Digital. "It had gotten much more fractured, partisan, less congenial."
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Kuster said "a big factor for me was that most of the moderate Republicans that I worked with all the time had left Congress. The people who were coming in were more hard right partisans."
President Donald Trump signs sweeping spending and tax legislation, known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," during a picnic with military families to mark Independence Day, at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2025. (Reuters/Ken Cedeno)
"They’ve made the heavy lift and now there are opportunities to be more impactful elsewhere," Wasserman said.
The bitter battle between Republicans and Democrats over the measure was another sign of the vicious partisan climate on Capitol Hill.
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That partisan fighting was only amplified during this autumn's showdown between Democrats and Republicans during the federal government shutdown.
Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who like Greene has experienced friction with GOP leadership in the chamber, pointed to Greene's departure announcement and argued on X, "I can’t blame her for leaving this institution that has betrayed the American people."
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-house-speaker-mccarthy-warns-marjorie-taylor-greene-the-canary-coal-mine