The News
Three Democratic senators are retiring in blue-leaning swing states ahead of the 2026 midterms. And the party doesn’t sound too worried about it.
Even as Republicans promise to make New Hampshire, Minnesota and Michigan into battles next year, Senate Democrats said this week that retiring incumbents in those states would give them good opportunities to elect younger and more diverse candidates.
“How can I be someone who just replaced my senior senator and not think that it’s a good idea?” said Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who replaced ex-Sen. Debbie Stabenow this year. She’s working to ensure Democrats hold her fellow Michigander Gary Peters’ seat after he exits next year.
“Only in the US Senate could it be radical to retire at 66 years old, right?” Slotkin quipped of Peters.
It’s an apt moment to consider new recruits for the caucus run by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 74, who’s feeling an onslaught of grassroots frustration over his decision to not pick a government funding fight with President Donald Trump.
Schumer will have to defend the seats being vacated by Peters, Sen. Tina Smith in Minnesota and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire — at 78, the oldest of the three Democrats who’ve opted to retire.
The three-term Shaheen told Semafor she was cognizant of “not wanting to be here if I were in a position that I could no longer do a good job for New Hampshire and do a good job for the country.” Republicans may have tried to make her age an issue if she ran again, though former Senate campaigns chief Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said she would have had a “very strong” chance of winning again.
A poll conducted last month for the conservative news site NHJournal found 60% of likely voters, including 49% of Democrats, were concerned about Shaheen’s age if she sought a new term. The same poll put former GOP Gov. Chris Sununu ahead of Shaheen in a potential match-up; one day before her announcement, Sununu told the Washington Times that he might run for the seat, because “she is very vulnerable and very beatable.”
Former Sen. Scott Brown, who lost to Shaheen in 2014, also met with Senate Republicans this week.
Democrats now see Rep. Chris Pappas, 44, as the likeliest candidate to replace Shaheen; he’d also defuse the age issue in the race. In Michigan and Minnesota, leading candidates include two younger women: state Sen. Mallory McMorrow in the former and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in the latter.
“You look at some of the candidates in these different states that are considering it, [and] that’s a lot of exciting young energy that I think can really help the Democratic Party,” said New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim, 42, who challenged disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez last year after he was indicted on bribery charges.
“The Democratic caucus on the House side, it’s older than the Republican side,” Kim added. “I think it’s the same on the Senate side as well.”
The party’s retirements are unlikely to stop with the three senators who have already announced. Illinois Democrats also expect Sen. Dick Durbin, 80, to leave at the end of this term, though he has not announced his plans. Former GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., 83, is also retiring after next year.
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The View From Republicans
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Tim Scott celebrated Shaheen’s retirement, and the committee shared a memo that suggested the state was shifting right — Republicans gained ground even as Donald Trump lost it last year.
Yet GOP strategist Jim Merrill, who is not working with any candidate, said that Shaheen might have been more vulnerable than a new candidate.
“Given what happened with Biden last year, and the fact that she’d be 80 if she won again, the age question was coming up,” he said. “Shaheen wasn’t holding town halls, wasn’t having many interactions with voters. A campaign against her would have highlighted her energy and engagement, and that won’t happen now.”
Burgess and David’s View
There’s ample reason to believe Democrats can hold New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota — even with the retirements of Peters, Smith and Shaheen. This isn’t like the crisis Democrats faced last year in West Virginia, which instantly turned red when former Sen. Joe Manchin retired.
Manchin was the last electable Democrat in a state racing to the right; by contrast, Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in New Hampshire since 2010, and it’s been far longer in Minnesota and Michigan.
The Biden debacle is still rippling through Democratic politics, but it was one of many crises driven by aging politicians that the party faced — and ignored — for most of last year. The late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s decline caused repeated problems, from her botched questioning of now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett to her bungling of allegations against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In the House, two elderly Democrats died this year after campaigning with cancer diagnoses. The subsequent deaths of Sylvester Turner and Raul Grijalava will make it easier for the House GOP to move legislation for months, until their states can hold special elections for their safe seats.
Notably, Shaheen was showing no Feinstein-like signs of decline or illness, which also contributed to two elderly House Democrats (Jerry Nadler and David Scott) losing their prime committee spots to younger challengers earlier this year.
But Democrats’ interest in electing forty-somethings to replace her as well as the Peters and Smith shows a healthy desire to move beyond the Biden experience.
And it represents one more chink in the armor of decorum that protected the late Robert Byrd and Thad Cochran, who won their final terms despite being too feeble to fulfill them.
Notable
- In Axios, Hans Nichols and Andrew Solender report on the GOP opportunity created by these retirements: ambitious House Democrats running for the open seats. (Democrats lost Slotkin’s swing seat when she ran for Senate, and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, who held a neighboring swing seat, is being encouraged to replace Peters.)