With 20 months to go until the 2026 midterm elections, six members of Congress—four senators and two representatives—have announced that they will not seek re-election that year. We’ll explain how these figures compare to previous years and what they tell us about the state of play for both parties in 2026.

U.S. Senate

Since our Feb. 20 update on congressional retirements, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) announced their retirements on Feb. 20 and March 12, respectively. The two join Sens. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who announced their retirements on Feb. 13 and Jan. 28, respectively.

Early race ratings from three independent forecasters show that McConnell’s seat is considered to be Solid/Safe Republican. However, ratings for the other three seats show a more competitive landscape.

The Hill’s Julia Manchester and Caroline Vakil wrote, “Democrats could hold the Senate seats in all three states in 2026, as the party out of the White House historically gained ground in the first midterm election of a president’s term. But it will certainly be more of an uphill climb without the three incumbents.”

Looking back at the 2024 election cycle, eight incumbent senators did not run for re-election. Six did not run again in 2022, four did not in 2020, and three did not in 2018.

U.S. House of Representatives 

Since our last update, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) announced on Feb. 25 that he will run for governor of Florida rather than run for another term in Congress. Donalds joins Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) who announced on Jan. 25 that he was also planning not to seek re-election to run for governor of Arizona.

Additionally, Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Sylvester Turner (D-Texas) died since our last update.

Looking back at the 2024 election cycle, 45 incumbent representatives did not run for re-election in 2024, 49 did not in 2022, 36 did not in 2020, and 52 did not in 2018.