(UnitedVoice.com) – A long-serving House Democrat has joined dozens of other legislators who won’t be running for re-election this November. Representative Annie Kuster (D-NH) just announced that she’ll be leaving Congress at the end of her current term. More than 40 of her colleagues have already made the same decision — and well over half of them are Democrats.

On March 27, Kuster, who’s represented New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional district, released a statement announcing the end of her House career. Kuster is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, a centrist group that tries to pass bipartisan legislation, and in her statement, she acknowledged that her work in Congress has been “rewarding, frustrating, inspiring, and challenging.” Then, she noted that she’d said she didn’t plan to stay in Congress forever, and wouldn’t be running for reelection. Instead, she’ll leave the House next January. Until then, she pledged to keep working on bipartisan bills.

So far, eight senators and 42 House members have said they won’t be running again in November. That isn’t an unusual number; 42 representatives stood down in 2022, 35 in 2020, and 44 in 2018. What is unusual this time is that 24 of those 42 are Democrats, despite the House being almost evenly split between the parties. Not all of the Liberals who plan to step down are retiring from politics; half of them are running for other offices. Still, that leaves 12 who want to leave the government. Meanwhile, of the senators quitting, five of the eight are Democrats, and just two are GOP.

Kuster first ran for Congress in 2010, when she was narrowly beaten by Republican candidate Charles Bass. Two years later, she beat him and, since then, has drawn between 49% and 55% of the vote at each election. However, with the Biden Administration struggling in the polls, her seat is rated as “likely Democrat” — but it isn’t deep blue, and a determined Republican campaign could flip the district in November.

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