Democrats get chance to add younger lawmakers to ranks with wave of retirements

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Another longtime Democratic lawmaker is retiring ahead of the 2026 midterms as the party hopes to retake congressional majorities after getting swept out of power as President Donald Trump retook office and prompted questions about what direction to steer the party in moving forward.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced he wouldn’t run for reelection next year, creating another open seat for Democrats in a reliably blue state and an opportunity for another lawmaker to rise in leadership. The 80-year-old senator is the No. 2 Senate Democrat and has served as the party’s whip since 2005.

Durbin said his decision was driven by a recognition that it was time to pass the torch to the party’s next generation.

“I’m 80 years old, alright? I feel good and strong and healthy to go to work like I’m supposed to. Travel back and forth to Washington every week, but I had to project forward,” the longtime senator said on Thursday. “The campaign is going to last two years, and then you’re going to serve six years, so are you ready to make an eight-year commitment? That’s the truth and the reality of the United States Senate. I didn’t think at this point it was the right thing to do. I think it was the right thing to pass the torch on to another generation.”

His departure is the latest in a growing trend of the party’s senators retiring and referencing the need to pass the torch, giving Democrats an opportunity to enact a generational shift in its makeup. Along with Durbin, other older Democrats like 78-year-old Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, 67-year-old Tina Smith of Minnesota and 66-year-old Gary Peters from Michigan.

While Democrats will lose the advantage provided by incumbency in all the races they lost longtime lawmakers in, they will get an opportunity to elect younger leaders amid growing desire for the party to get fresh blood in the wake of former President Joe Biden getting effectively forced out of the presidential race due to his age and an older leadership team getting targeted by the Democratic base for failing to mount an effective resistance to Trump and the GOP majority.

“The way Biden went out and even the post-Biden stories have come out about how much his age had affected him, I think really has shaken the party. It’s a conscious effort of ‘look, we've got a young base. We want to appeal to young base. Having old people around doing that is not working,’” said David McLennan, a political science professor and director of the Meredith poll.

Democrats have been working to figure out what direction to move the party in since Trump retook office and quickly unleashed a flurry of executive orders in a push to remake the federal government in his image. In congressional majorities in both chambers, Democrats have had little power to stop Trump and the Republican majorities from implementing an expansive agenda.

Party leadership, particularly Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has been criticized by its voters and progressive figures within the party for not doing enough to mount an effective resistance to Trump. Schumer’s support for a stopgap bill to avoid a government shutdown resulted in calls for him to step down from his position and for the party to usher in a new generation of leaders.

Durbin’s departure will give Democrats a chance to do exactly that, which comes on top of other efforts from other senators to be the leaders of change. Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking marathon speech on the Senate floor, filled with repudiations of Trump, gave the party some momentum it is hoping to continue capitalizing on during the 2026 election cycle. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., has also taken on a more prominent role in speaking out against the administration over the last several months.

High-profile progressives in Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have also been trying to push the party in a new direction through a nationwide tour that has made stops in Republican-leaning areas, speaking out against the administration and calling on the Democratic Party to change its priorities.

A fresh wave of lawmakers that will likely fill safely Democratic seats in Illinois, Minnesota and New Hampshire could also result in more new voices entering the party in its younger shift.

“They bring several advantages. They can communicate more effectively with the younger generation of Democratic voters,” McLennan said. “They're not so steeped in Washington politics. They bring that outsiders perspective, and with it comes to that ability to fight in a different way. Younger people in Congress — both on the House and Senate side — will certainly help the approval ratings among Gen Z Democrats.”