Midterm Outlook
March 10, 2026
The midterm election outlook is shifting rapidly with retirements, updated congressional maps, and primary losses.
House of Representatives: These retirement announcements have come as President Donald Trump and Republican leadership try to preserve a narrow House majority.
- To date, 56 US House members are retiring instead of running for their current seat.
- 35 Republicans have announced their retirement, compared to 21 Democrats. In recent years, more members of the party in power have headed for the exits.
- This list includes those who lost their primary election, or are running for higher office which include the Senate, Governorship, and offices of Attorney General and County Judge.
- The president’s party usually loses congressional seats in midterm elections.
Recent Notable Retirements
- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA-48) announced last week that he will be retiring due to the redrawn maps in California. His seat became a genuine toss-up after California redrew its districts. Kamala Harris would have won the new district over Donald Trump by three points in 2024. It previously was a safe Republican seat.
- Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT-4) also announced last week that he will be retiring.
- Utah’s congressional map has gone through many different versions for this election year due to a battle at the state level between Republicans and Democrats.
- A judge recently declared that it was too late to change the map, leaving a safe Democratic seat in the Salt Lake City area.
- Owens decided to retire instead of running in this new Democratic leaning seat or run in a nearby district against another member of Congress in the primary.
- Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX-23) announced he will no longer run for re-election.
- Gonzalez was serving his third term, but following a 2026 primary runoff challenge and a House Ethics Committee investigation into an affair with a former staffer, he dropped his re-election bid last week.
- Without Gonzalez in the race, Brandon Herrera will likely be the GOP’s nominee, giving Democrats a shot at flipping this traditionally safe red district.
Texas Senate Race
- On the Democratic side, State Senator James Talarico won the nomination to be his party’s nominee, beating Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30) by a margin of 52-48%, avoiding a runoff.
- While the Republican side is a bit more messy, incumbent Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) has been forced into a runoff election with current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
- Cornyn garnered 42% of the vote, while Paxton was just shy of 41%. As neither candidate breached the 50% mark, there will be a runoff election on May 26. President Trump has been publicly musing about endorsing a candidate prior to the runoff.
Why it matters: The messy primary on the Republican side forces the candidates to spend time and money attacking each other over the next two months instead of focusing on the general election.
Democrats have dubbed this the dream scenario for their general election prospects. A perfect storm of negative approval ratings on President Trump and competitive elections in stronghold GOP states could give Democrats a slim but real chance at controlling both chambers of Congress next year.
- Talarico has been widely viewed as Democrats best chance to take the seat, and infighting on the GOP side only helps them make their case.
- Putting Texas in play forces national Republicans to spend more money protecting their eventual nominee this fall.
Montana Senate Race
- Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) announced his surprise decision to retire last week just hours before the filing deadline was about to pass.
- He quickly endorsed U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana Kurt Alme, who filed to run for Daines’ Senate seat as a Republican just minutes before the deadline closed on Tuesday evening.
- This move raised eyebrows across Capitol Hill as Sen. Daines in effect froze the primary field for his handpicked successor.
- Another member of Congress, Rep. Marie Glusenkamp-Perez (D-WA-3) publicly stated her frustration with the move following his retirement announcement.
One of the reasons Daines cited for his retirement announcement was the desire to avoid an expensive race by keeping big Democratic names out of the mix including former Democratic Senator Tester and former Democratic Governors Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock.