Democrats' Midterm Troubles Mount As More Lawmakers Retire

Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch announced this week that he would not be seeking reelection this year, making him the 31st Democrat to retire in an already-contentious midterm. While the prospect of fresh faces is a GOOD thing, the timing of the retirements puts even more pressure on the Democratic Party, as fighting to retain an open seat costs considerably more than fighting for an incumbent. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Find our merchandise at Teespring

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

Follow more of our stories at

Subscribe to our podcast

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

This week Democratic representative Ted Deutch announced that he was retiring this year, would not be seeking reelection, making him the 31st Democrat to declare that they're done. Now, the Democrats have at least 31 open seats as we head into the midterms. Republicans by contrast have 13 retirements and of course, two that retired this year. So they got 15, 15 open seats versus 31 open seats. That doesn't bode well for Democrats, especially considering that all Republicans have to do is flip five total to be in control of the House of Representatives. And of course, an open seat costs a lot more money to defend than an incumbent seat and Deutch's district, he won last time by 56% of the vote, and it was not considered in play prior to his retirement announcement. So if Deutch had run, it was pretty much a guarantee that he was going to win.

Now that he has announced his retirement, this district is of course, considered a toss up. Republicans could easily take this. This could be one of the five they need to regain control of the House. Now I do not begrudge Mr. Deutch or representative Deutch, excuse me, for retiring. I do not begrudge any of these Democrats that are retiring and honestly, I would like to see more of them retiring. Nancy Pelosi should not be running for office again. Lots of other folks also shouldn't be running for office again. I'm sorry, but Jerry Nadler, your time is up. You know, some of these people that are in their eighties that have been around since the eighties, by the way, it's time for you folks to retire. I encourage retirements and I encourage the introduction of fresh faces. This just happens to be a very rough year for the Democrats. They're already poised just based on historical context alone, already poised to lose control of the House.

So you know what, thinking about it that way, maybe this is the best time for Democrats to retire. If they know they're not gonna win, that they're gonna lose control of the House just based on history, then yeah, this is a good time. You're gonna lose anyway. You can regroup next time around. That actually makes sense. Then of course, when you look at the polls, you have generic Republican beating generic Democrat by seven points. I think it's 49% prefer generic Republican, 42% prefer generic Democrat. Important to note that neither of them obviously break 50% because the American public is pretty much sick of everybody. Either way, these retirements are going to hurt the Democrats. It's going to cost them lots of money. It is going to lose them seats, let's be honest about that, seats will be lost. And I think based on this new information, I don't see any way forward where Democrats can retain control of the House.