Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) is the 23rd House Republican to resign or retire on Donald Trump this year.
Yoho framed his announcement as keeping a term limit pledge, but the reality is that House Republicans are running for the exits because they view taking back the House in 2020 as a lost cause and they don’t want to spend another two years at a minimum in the minority.
Dave Wasserman pointed out that 43% of the Republicans who were in office when Trump was sworn in have retired, lost, or decided not to run again:
Red exodus: when Trump was inaugurated in 2017, there were 241 Republicans in the House. Since then, 104 of them (43%) have either retired, been defeated, or are forgoing reelection in 2020. https://t.co/faAL2bEew2
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 10, 2019
Trump is shrinking the Republican Party to nearly invisible levels. If Republicans thought that they had any hope of taking back the majority next year, they would not be tripping over each other to get to the emergency exits.
When a president’s party faces so many retirements before the incumbent’s reelection campaign, it is a clear sign of a lack of confidence in the president’s ability to win their own race and sweep others into office with them.
Impeachment is a near term problem, but House Republicans see the writing on the wall and are getting out before the Trump ship completely sinks.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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