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The House turns over a lot. The Senate is a different story, those guys fossilize.



This election the house will have 55 voluntary departures + 2 people resigned so far. Assuming ~90% get relegated which may be high that's easily ~100 new members. It varies quite a bit but 2010 for example was down to 85% that won their races.


> The House turns over a lot. The Senate is a different story

I respectfully refer the gentleperson from Spooky to the following:

https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php

Few things in life are more predictable than the chances of an incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives winning reelection.

They don't provide a number but eyeballing the chart, I think that number starts with a "9" over several decades, and is increasing. Here's an article that says it was around 96.6% in 2014;[0] it must be embarrassing to find yourself in the bottom 3.4 percent of any group.

(It also says House members are reelected more often than Senate members.)

[0] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/nov/...


You’re totally right, but being a rank and file congressman is kinda miserable... many transition to other offices, federal/state appointments, etc.


Representatives also face 3x as many elections.




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