Two months remain until the midterm election Nov. 4 , when many United States congress members are up for reelection, including all nine representatives from Indiana.
Recent polling has indicated that this year, American’s low approval of the polarized Congress will foster some turnover for the next term. However, all nine of Indiana’s representatives are projected to keep their seats.
According to a Gallup research poll conducted last month, only 19 percent of registered voters in the U.S. believe most members of Congress should be reelected. This is the lowest reelection approval of all-time, according to the poll.
Also historically low is Americans’ satisfaction with their own representatives. The recent Gallup poll indicated 50 percent of voters believe their representatives deserve to keep their seat. This gap — between opinions on members of Congress deserving reelection and wanting an individual representative to stay in office — is the widest it has ever been in a midterm year. This, historically, would indicate a higher-than-average turnover rate in Congress.
That higher-than-average turnover rate, however, is not as large as one might expect. Election models at the Washington Post indicate seven districts across the nation will see a change in the party representing them. All are projected to elect a Republican to replace a Democrat. This will strengthen the Republicans majority in the House of Representatives from their current 233 seats to 240.
Self-reported answers to Gallup’s poll as to why voters would keep their representative were based on personal interpretation of doing a good or bad job, notably for either listening to constituents or being in office for too long.
According to a report on job tenure and service in Congress by the Congressional Research Service , the average term served by this Congress is 9.1 years, more than five terms, for the House of Representatives and 10.2 years, less than two terms, for the Senate. While Congressional retention has been on a steep incline since 1789, tenure is down in both houses since the last term.
And Congress is getting older, too. Twenty percent of members in the current House of Representatives have served more than 16 years, up from 14 percent in the 104th Congress serving in 1995.
Democrat Pete Visclosky has served District 1, located in Northwest Indiana, since 1985. The other eight representatives have been serving since as early as 2008.
