House and Senate Committee Musical Chairs
At Plurus Strategies, we are not only policy experts, but also big political junkies. Our idea of the August recess, even when the Senate is in for all but one week, is finding time to take a look at how election outcomes may impact House and Senate committee leadership and membership in the next Congress. Posted below is our analysis of potential changes in the House and Senate.
As you will see, our primary objective was to show how retirements, tight races, and term limits may impact the standing committees. Our two documents represent a snapshot of the current landscape, although this could change as the midterms get closer. To be clear, this is not an attempt to predict who will win or lose in November. In the interest of eliminating political bias from our analysis, we have tried to rely on major election forecasting organizations. That being said, the latest House and Senate race ratings from Real Clear Politics, the Cook Political Report, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball are included as appendices. Even across these ratings, there are some discrepancies.
While our House and Senate documents seek to achieve the same overarching objectives, you will notice slightly different formatting for each. More specifically, our House presentation identifies all members who will not be returning in the 116th Congress (including those retiring, running for higher office, or losing their primaries); Republican-held seats carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016; and Democrat-held seats carried by Donald Trump in 2016. The tightest races are marked as toss-ups, while somewhat competitive races are coded as likely/leans Democrat or Republican. In the House, these race ratings are changing almost daily. Races that are not color coded are viewed as safe seats.
For our Senate slide deck, in addition to identifying senators who are retiring, we also mark members who have seniority over sitting chairs or ranking members, as the Senate tends to prioritize seniority in determining committee leadership more than the House. Our Senate race rating system also differs slightly, indicating all members in cycle with low, moderate, and high levels of risk for sitting incumbents and open seats.
As British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, “a week is a long time in politics.” It is possible this has never been more true in the U.S. While it remains unclear if we will see a blue wave or a red tide in November, we’ll be watching closely.