On its face, the fact that three Democratic senators representing competitive states have announced their retirements should be a worrying sign for Democrats.
It’s usually harder for a party to hold an open seat than to defend a sitting incumbent. Primaries can be messy and unpredictable, and raising money as a challenger is a lot harder than doing so as a sitting U.S. senator.
Early in the cycle retirements can also suggest a lack of confidence among that party’s incumbents about the upcoming political environment. These back-to-back-to-back retirements by Democrats also feed into the conventional wisdom that the party is rudderless and powerless. After all, a stronger party should be able to compel its own incumbents to stick around — including one who just finished chairing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for two cycles.
But it’s also dangerous to jump to these sorts of conclusions this early. History suggests that the party in the White House has much more to fear when it comes to open seats than does the minority party. Midterm elections are a referendum on the party
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