Remember the conventional wisdom in Washington that if Republican lawmakers managed to pass their tax overhaul it would help stanch the GOP's flood of retirements because the overall political environment would improve? Well, time to throw that in the trash bin of history.
Monday's retirement announcement of California Rep. Ed Royce, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, marked the third big loss for Republicans already in 2018, even after the GOP managed to pass the tax law that was supposed to give them such a big boost. Royce joined Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Bill Schuster of Pennsylvania, who both announced on Jan. 2.
The continued GOP stampede for the exits can only lead to one conclusion: these lawmakers are looking at the national political environment and the internal polling of their constituencies and concluding things are simply too toxic. And that conclusion, in turn, continues to give Democrats an incredible boost heading into 2018.
That means Royce’s seat made the epic leap from favoring Republicans to now favoring Democrats. Overall, right now, Republicans are faced with defending 17 seats in the “toss up” category compared to Democrats’ four seats with the same designation, plus two GOP seats that now “lean Democratic” (Royce and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida) while Democrats have zero seats that have moved to favoring Republicans.
Overall, at least 29 House Republicans have already announced they won’t be returning along with three Senate Republicans (Corker, Flake, and Hatch) and all indications suggest we can expect a lot more to come. And every GOP loss puts Democrats in a better position heading into the midterms.