Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Republicans Should Worry About Latest Retirements

With months to go until 2020 filing deadlines, a string of Republican representatives have already bailed out. Why?

July 31, 2019 at 10:33 AM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

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In the past 10 days or so, we’ve had some very intriguing tea leaves about the 2020 elections: Notably, five House Republicans have announced that they’re retiring.

Only one of the five, Texas’ Pete Olson, is in a sharply contested seat. Representatives Rob Bishop of Utah, Mike Conaway of Texas, Paul Mitchell of Michigan and Martha Roby of Alabama will all likely be replaced by candidates of the same party. Even so, they join a string of Republicans who have so far announced that they plan to retire or seek other offices this cycle, with months still to go until various state filing deadlines.