Record 36 House Republicans To Leave Congress Amid Growing 'Dysfunction' On Capitol Hill

A record 36 House Republicans have announced they will leave Congress at the end of their terms in Washington, a wave of departures that is reshaping power calculations on Capitol Hill ahead of the 2026 midterms and testing Speaker Mike Johnson's ability to hold together an already fragile majority.

The news came after months of mounting strain inside the House Republican Conference. Since the US elections of 2024 and the launch of what many in Washington are already calling a Trump 2.0 era, Republicans have been governing with a razor-thin margin in the lower chamber, frequently paralysed by internal feuds and procedural brinkmanship. Against that backdrop, senior members and relative newcomers alike have begun heading for the exits, citing gridlock, personal pressures and a sense that the job has simply become untenable.

The current tally of 36 outgoing House Republicans, confirmed with the announcement from Representative Sam Graves of Missouri, has already surpassed the previous modern record of 34 Republican retirements set in the 2018 cycle, when Democrats reclaimed the House during Donald Trump's first term. By comparison, 21 House Democrats are not seeking re-election this year, underscoring how lopsided the exodus has become.

Graves framed his decision in terms of generational change rather than disgust with the institution. In a statement on Friday, he called stepping down a difficult but necessary step, saying he believed in 'making room for the next generation' and that it was 'time to pass the torch' to new conservative leaders in Missouri. He also pointedly noted that public service 'isn't easy', a phrase that, in the current climate, reads less like boilerplate and more like quiet understatement.

Capitol Hill Veterans Walk Away From 'Dysfunction'

For context, the record departures cut across ideological lines on Capitol Hill. Hardline conservatives such as Chip Roy, Jodey Arrington and Michael McCaul of Texas are leaving alongside battleground moderates like Don Bacon of Nebraska, who has repeatedly defended a competitive district for his party. It is not just one faction losing patience; it is much of the spectrum.

Several of those stepping down have been unusually blunt about why. Bacon told The Hill in January that he and his wife were simply ready for a change, then added that what he termed the 'dysfunction' in Congress 'isn't attractive.' He described the strain of trying to fend off Democrats while also breaking with his own party's presidential standard-bearer on key issues, saying he had done that balancing act since 2020 and finally decided it was time to move on.

Political scientists see a familiar pattern behind the personal stories. Michael Romano, a political science professor at Shenandoah University who has studied congressional retirements, said some lawmakers eventually 'hit a kind of wall' on Capitol Hill. They either feel they have achieved what they set out to do, he argued, or become convinced they can no longer get much done at all. At that point, Romano said, frustration or the lure of a different political role pushes them to look beyond Congress.

Capitol Hill Exodus Feeds Governor And Senate Ambitions

Not all of the 36 are quitting politics. A sizeable bloc is using their House careers as a launch pad for gubernatorial bids, hoping they can exert more control from state capitals than from a fractured House on Capitol Hill. Ten Republicans are running for governor, including David Schweikert of Arizona, Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, Randy Feenstra of Iowa, John James of Michigan, John Rose of Tennessee, Byron Donalds of Florida and Andy Biggs of Arizona. Chip Roy is running for attorney general in Texas.

Norman has been explicit about his calculus. He has argued he can 'accomplish far more on a national level being governor', noting that there are only 50 governors compared with 435 House members and 100 senators. As he put it, his voice would carry 'far greater' weight as what he called the chief executive of South Carolina than as one of many lawmakers lost in the scrum on Capitol Hill.

Others are trying to move across the Rotunda, not out of Congress altogether. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Julia Letlow of Louisiana, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Barry Moore of Alabama, Mike Collins and Earl Carter of Georgia, Andy Barr of Kentucky and Ashley Hinson of Iowa are all running for Senate seats. Wesley Hunt of Texas made the same attempt but lost in the Texas Senate Republican primary.

Hern's campaign offers a glimpse of how tightly some of these bids are tied to national ideological battles. Announcing his Senate run for the seat vacated by Markwayne Mullin after Mullin became Homeland Security secretary, Hern claimed the 'American dream is under threat' from what he called the radical left and 'RINO' Republicans. He said he was running to ensure that Donald Trump had a 'loyal ally' in the upper chamber, leaving little doubt about the role Trump's agenda still plays in Republican career choices.

A Thinning Majority And Fraying Discipline On Capitol Hill

The pressure on Johnson is immediate and practical. Beyond the 36 members who have said they will not return, four Republicans have already resigned their seats this year and one died, eroding margins further. Every departure narrows the path for Republicans to pass legislation, defend all the seats they won in 2024 and still look competitive enough to avoid a Democratic surge in 2026 that could sweep away Johnson's speakership.

Attendance has become a persistent problem on Capitol Hill as members eye the exits or divide their time between Washington and campaign trails back home. Republican leaders were forced to hold open a war powers vote for more than an hour in January while they waited for Wesley Hunt to reach the chamber. Hunt, who was then campaigning for the Texas Senate, had already drawn a rebuke from Johnson for missing an earlier contentious vote that day.

None of this guarantees a Democratic wave in the next midterms. Voters remain volatile and many of the retiring Republicans represent safe conservative districts that their party is still favoured to hold. But the scale and character of the Republican retreat from Capitol Hill point to a party uneasy with how it governs, even as it fights to keep governing at all.