Kind of surprising, considering his age. He's only a few months older than I am. To retire from Congress at 58 kinda makes you wonder.
Democrats are heading for the exits in droves.
Clearly true, but I am still hoping for the possibility that it will not be a GOP wave year, sweeping in enough Republicans to take control. I like to think and hope that Dems, despite leaving "in droves," might be able to have a net gain of 2-3 seats in the House. Maybe Biden's approvals go up between now and October. Maybe the GOP will still look like it's pretty evil and unscrupulous, and that may motivate the Dem base to GOTV, better than they did in 2010 or 2014.
Ideally, more members of Congress would retire at such an age, and not everyone wants to be a lifer. This can be seen with Rep. Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana, who's retiring after having served only three terms. But as regards to what you say, I don't think Democrats will retain their House majority. I'm not expecting for them to suffer the kinds of losses they did in 1994 or 2010, but the current political environment does not bode well for them.
This is an unpleasant surprise. Hollingsworth is genuinely quite young (only 38) and has been in office for only a bit, as you said. Also he was pretty decent for a Republican, having opposed the Big Lie (did back TX vs PA though) and supported the 1/6 Commission that only 34 other House Republicans did. He also opposed Trump's transgender military ban (I oppose it too - like he said, absolutely anyone who wants to serve their country should be able to and the military shouldn't let any prejudices/discrimination stop any able-bodied person from joining). But I guess it kind of makes sense, since he's extremely rich already and might be tired of the rancor in Washington. If I was him, I guess I'd retire too - though this is still bad since his successor is likely to be far more Trumpish and unreasonable.
(As a sidenote, I agree with your prediction regarding the midterms.)
He is keeping his pledge to only run for three or four terms - which makes him better than most Republicans in addition for the reasons stated.
