Under Trump 2.0, members of Congress are leaving office in numbers that haven’t been seen in nearly a hundred years.
An NBC News analysis of historical data from the Brookings Institution’s Vital Statistics on Congress found that 60 representatives and senators will not seek reelection this year.
Broken down, 51 House members and nine senators are either retiring from political life or seeking another office. This figure does not include members of Congress who have died or resigned, such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
In the House, 30 of those lawmakers are Republicans and 21 are Democrats, marking the most departures from the lower chamber in all but two election cycles since 1930. In the Senate, five are Republicans and four are Democrats, excluding those who are running for other offices but are not up for reelection this year, like Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who is running for governor.
The members cited a variety of reasons for leaving: Nebraska Republican Don Bacon said he no longer had the hunger to endure another campaign, Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and Maine Democrat Jared Golden wanted to focus on their families, and South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman thought his business chops were needed in the governor’s office.
Others, however, are heading for the exit to escape the “toxic” work culture under President Donald Trump.
Bonnie Watson Coleman, the 81-year-old Democratic representative for New Jersey, said she couldn’t bear the idea of serving two more years with Trump in the White House.
“I still would have had Donald Trump as a president,” she told NBC. “And I tell you, that’s just sickening for me to have to deal with.”
Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi is leaving the House to run for Senate. When asked why so many of his colleagues are retiring, he said the political arena has been an unpleasant work environment in recent years.
“Over my 10 years here, I think Donald Trump has helped catalyze a real toxic partisan atmosphere,” he told the outlet. “I have not known normal. And I think for anybody who came here expecting something different and then being served up this kind of toxic brew of partisanship and character attacks and name-calling is going to be severely disappointed.”
Few Republican lawmakers are more familiar with that toxicity than top Trump foes Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis, both of whom are leaving office.
“As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term,” Tillis said in a statement last summer.
“That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with the love of my life Susan, our two children, three beautiful grandchildren, and the rest of our extended family back home,” he added. “It’s not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
