A blue wave is not certain despite GOP retirements

They’re headed for the exits in Congress, more than 50 lawmakers in all, deciding they’ve had enough and opting to quit rather than run again in November.

Some — like Minnesota’s Democratic Sen. Al Franken, Michigan’s Democratic Rep. John Conyers Jr. and Arizona’s Republican Rep. Trent Franks — were chased out by sexual harassment charges.

Others, like GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, wished to spare themselves what looked to be uphill fights.

Many more are leaving the House to advance their careers, running for Senate or seeking the governor’s office back home.

Historically, it’s proved easier to win an open seat than oust an incumbent, which heartens Democrats vying to seize control of the House. Faced with an unusually high number of retirements, Republicans will be defending far more open seats in November than Democrats, who need a gain of 23 to take over.

The GOP is in better shape in the Senate, where Democrats need to pick up just two seats for control, but have many more vulnerable incumbents to defend.

Despite Democratic optimism, however, there is no clear correlation between congressional retirements and a so-called wave election.

So far, 59 lawmakers have announced their departures, the most since 1994, which was a tsunami of a midterm. The GOP gained 60 congressional seats at that midpoint of the Clinton administration, including 54 in the House, thus ending Democrats’ decades-long hold on the chamber.

The second-highest number of retirements came in 2010, another wave year, when Republicans won nearly 70 seats to seize control of the House under President Obama and made big gains in the Senate.

But there were also a significant number of retirements in 2002, when the GOP picked up seats under President George W. Bush. In that election, with the trauma surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks still fresh, Republicans broke the longtime pattern of midterm losses for the party in the White House.

It won’t be clear until Nov. 6 whether this congressional exodus signals a wave, or merely the fact that dozens of Washington lawmakers decided life was better elsewhere.