Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, John Cornyn, and dozens of other sitting members of Congress will not be back when the 120th Congress convenes in January 2027. Some chose the exit. Others had it chosen for them. Together, the departures mark one of the largest congressional turnovers in recent memory, 57 House members and 11 senators not seeking reelection, plus six more who lost their primaries, and the list tells a pointed story about where power is moving in American politics.
A comprehensive tally published by the Daily Caller on May 30 cataloged the exits as voters prepare to elect all 435 House members and roughly a third of the 100-seat Senate this November. The roster of departures includes some of the most recognizable names in Washington, figures who shaped legislation, led caucuses, and defined their parties for decades.
What emerges from the full picture is a Congress shedding its old guard on both sides of the aisle, while primary voters on the right punish incumbents who broke with the conservative base on core issues.
McConnell, 84, announced in February 2025 that he would not seek an eighth term representing Kentucky. He had served since 1985 and led the GOP Senate Conference for 18 consecutive years before stepping down from leadership in January 2025 in favor of John Thune. His final stretch was marked by friction with President Trump over tariff and trade policy, and he voted against adding the SAVE America Act to a funding package in April. Conservative colleagues had already criticized his leadership after the party's underperformance in the 2022 midterms. Trump backed Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr to succeed him, and Barr handily won the May 19 GOP nomination in a state with a strong Republican lean.
Pelosi, 86, announced in November 2025 that she would not run for a 21st term. The California Democrat led the House Democratic Caucus for 20 years and served as Speaker for eight, spanning parts of four presidencies. Her tenure drew persistent scrutiny over stock trades she and her husband made while she held one of the most powerful positions in government. Observers alleged insider trading, charges she has denied, but the math is hard to ignore: her net worth grew by a factor of 23 during her time in Congress.
That kind of enrichment, achieved while writing the rules that govern markets, is exactly the sort of arrangement that erodes public trust in the institution. Pelosi's exit does not close the questions her financial record raised.
She endorsed former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who testified before the House Select Committee on January 6 during her speakership, in the crowded Democratic primary to succeed her ally Steny Hoyer in Maryland. Hoyer himself, 86, a figure long intertwined with Pelosi's leadership circle, announced his retirement in January after 45 years in the House, making him the longest-serving Democrat in the chamber. Hoyer endorsed State Delegate Adrian Boafo, a former aide, to succeed him.
New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, 78, announced in September 2025 that he would not run again after 34 years representing a New York City-based seat. Nadler chaired the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2023 and served as a House manager during Trump's first impeachment, a role that defined his public profile but did little for his constituents beyond generating cable-news appearances.
On the Republican side, the retirements carry a different texture. Several departing members found themselves at odds with the party's base, and with Trump, on specific policy fights.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, 65, announced in June 2025 that he would not seek a third term, just hours after Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against him. Tillis had come out in opposition to the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act and became one of three GOP senators to vote against it. He also announced opposition to Trump's Federal Reserve nominees in January, citing a criminal investigation into then-Chair Jerome Powell, before reversing course and voting to confirm Kevin Warsh on May 13. The Cook Political Report rates the race to succeed him, between Trump-backed GOP nominee Michael Whatley and former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, as "Lean D," a potential pickup opportunity for Democrats born directly from intra-party friction.
Ryan Zinke, 64, Trump's original Secretary of the Interior and the first former Navy SEAL elected to the House, announced in March that he would not seek reelection from Montana's First District. He had served in the House since 2023, with a previous stint from 2015 to 2017. Cook rates the open seat "Likely R." His departure adds to a growing list of veteran Republican lawmakers stepping away from Congress as the party reshapes itself around its current leadership.
Elise Stefanik, 41, the upstate New York Republican who in 2014 became the youngest woman ever elected to the House, a record broken four years later by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will not seek a seventh term. She briefly ran for governor of New York but dropped out after Trump declined to endorse her or her primary opponent. Trump had also pulled her nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, citing concerns that the GOP might lose her House seat in a special election. Trump won that seat by 21 points in 2024. Stefanik cited "spending precious time with my family" in her December 2025 decision to exit electoral politics.
The retirements are significant. The primary defeats may be more telling.
John Cornyn, 74, lost Tuesday's primary runoff for his own Texas Senate seat by a 28-point landslide to state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who carried all but two counties. Cornyn had served 24 years in the upper chamber. He narrowly finished first in the March primary but fell short of a majority, triggering the runoff. Trump endorsed Paxton one week before the vote, after The Atlantic reported, citing three anonymous sources, that the president's advisers had initially expected him to back Cornyn. Cornyn drew significant criticism from the base for his 2022 vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act following the Uvalde school shooting, a stance many Republican voters viewed as a capitulation on Second Amendment rights. Trump accused Cornyn of not fighting "hard enough" for the SAVE America Act. Paxton won despite allegations of corruption, he was impeached in 2023 and later acquitted, and reports of marital infidelity.
The margin tells the story. When a 24-year incumbent senator loses by 28 points in his own party's runoff, the base is not sending a suggestion. It is issuing a directive.
Dan Crenshaw, a four-term Texas Republican, former Navy SEAL, and prominent member of the party's hawkish wing, lost his safe seat's March GOP primary in a landslide, by 15 points, to conservative challenger State Rep. Steve Toth. The detail that stands out: Trump endorsed every other incumbent Republican seeking reelection in Texas but withheld his endorsement from Crenshaw. At 42, Crenshaw's exit is not a generational passing of the torch. It is a policy correction imposed by primary voters.
Bill Cassidy, 68, the two-term Louisiana Republican who chaired the Senate HELP Committee, was denied a third term after finishing a distant third in the May 16 GOP primary, failing to make the June 27 runoff. Cassidy voted to convict Trump following his second impeachment in 2021 and drew criticism from the Make America Healthy Again movement during his committee tenure as a staunch vaccine supporter. Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow will face Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff. The pattern of Trump-backed candidates stepping into seats vacated by departing senators is becoming one of the defining features of the 2026 cycle.
The left's departures carry their own lessons. Jasmine Crockett, the 45-year-old Texas Democrat, gave up a deep-blue House seat to run for Senate and lost her party's primary by six points to State Rep. James Talarico. Crockett had drawn scrutiny for incendiary rhetoric, including referring to Trump as "Temu Hitler" and mocking Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, as "Governor Hot Wheels." The comments may have played well on social media. They did not play well enough with Democratic primary voters to win a statewide race.
Al Green, 78, the Houston-area Democrat who represented his seat since 2005, lost a landslide runoff Tuesday to freshman Rep. Christian Menefee, who is four decades younger. The two were forced into the same district by a GOP-drawn map. Green mounted six unsuccessful attempts to impeach Trump and interrupted both Trump's March 2025 speech to a joint session of Congress and the March 2026 State of the Union, resulting in his removal from the House chamber on both occasions. Dramatic congressional moments have defined the current political era, but Green's repeated disruptions did not translate into political durability when his district lines changed.
Steve Cohen, 77, the white Democratic congressman who had represented a majority-black Memphis seat since 2007, Tennessee's sole Democratic House member since 2023, announced on May 15 that he would not seek reelection. He cited the state's newly redrawn congressional map following a landmark Supreme Court decision in April that severely limited race-based gerrymandering. The numbers bore out his calculation: Kamala Harris won Cohen's old Ninth District by 43 points in 2024, but the redrawn seat voted for Trump by 21 points, according to Dave's Redistricting App. Cohen is perhaps best remembered for eating a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken at a 2019 House Judiciary Committee hearing to cast then-Attorney General Bill Barr as a "chicken", a stunt that captured the performative style of the era.
Not everyone leaving Congress is leaving politics. Tommy Tuberville, the 71-year-old Alabama Republican and former Auburn football coach, is trading his Senate seat for a gubernatorial run. He handily won the Republican nomination on May 19 and is the heavy favorite against Democratic nominee Doug Jones, whom Tuberville unseated from the Senate in 2020. Tuberville made national headlines in 2023 when he placed holds on key military promotions for ten months to protest the Biden-era Pentagon's taxpayer-funded abortion policy, a stand that drew fierce criticism from the defense establishment but earned respect from the pro-life base.
Nancy Mace, 48, the three-term Republican representing the Charleston-area seat in South Carolina, is running for governor. She enters the June 9 primary as an underdog after Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette. Mace made her name through advocacy against transgender-identifying men using women's bathrooms and early support for a discharge petition to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, vocally pushing for transparency around Epstein's child sex trafficking operation. Internal Republican competition for leadership positions continues to shape the party's direction at every level.
Trump endorsed Rep. Barry Moore in the June 16 GOP primary runoff for the Alabama Senate seat Tuberville is vacating. Moore faces former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson.
Sixty-one House members and 13 senators, between retirements and primary losses, will not return to the next Congress. The sheer volume of turnover is notable, but the pattern within it is more important. On the Republican side, incumbents who crossed the base on the Second Amendment, on spending, on impeachment, or on Trump's policy agenda paid a price at the ballot box. Cornyn's 28-point defeat and Crenshaw's 15-point loss were not close calls. They were verdicts.
On the Democratic side, the departures are driven more by age, redistricting, and the collapse of performative politics as a viable long-term strategy. Pelosi, Hoyer, Nadler, and Green collectively represent well over a century of House service. Their exits close a chapter, but the questions about Pelosi's stock trades, Green's disruptions, and Crockett's inflammatory rhetoric will outlast their tenures.
Washington is about to look different. Whether it governs differently depends on whether the voters who forced these changes hold the new class to the same standard they applied to the old one.
