2 Dem reps. retiring, adding to 2022 midterms jitters
Two senior Democratic congressman announced Monday that they won’t seek reelection, adding to growing worries about the party’s chances of holding on to its slim majority in the House of Representatives.
Rep. Michael Doyle (D-Pa.), a 13-year representative from Pittsburgh, and David Price (D-N.C.), a powerful member of the House Appropriations Committee. both said they will step down at the end of their current terms.
Doyle already faced a primary opponent in his deep blue district and he is one of a dwindling number of white male liberals to represent big city districts increasingly dominated by people of color and white progressives.
Price, 81, has represented a similarly heavily Democratic district in North Carolina’s growing Research Triangle area since 1986.
Both seats are safely Democratic and the planned retirements will not, by themselves, rejigger the partisan arithmetic, even with both states planning redistricting that could change some district lines.
But they are the 11th and 12th Democratic incumbents to announce they won’t run again for their seats in the 2022 midterms, including powerful Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.).
Political insiders say when large numbers of members from a party that controls Congress don’t run for reelection, it suggests the party will lose power in the coming election.
Republicans lost 40 House seats and Democrats seized control in 2018, after a year in which 39 incumbent GOP lawmakers decided not to run for their seats again.
The incumbent president’s party usually loses seats in the midterm elections, another grim data point for Democrats who hold the edge by only a handful of seats.