No current members of the U.S. Senate have announced that they will retire before the upcoming 2018 elections, which could make this the first year in history in which no sitting senator has retired.
For the past 25 years there has been an average of seven senators facing re-election who ended up retiring, according to The Washington Examiner. Two senators were expected to retire this year — Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, 83, and California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 84 — but both have decided to run for re-election, despite their age.
“Thus far, none of the 33 incumbents have announced that they won’t be running for re-election, which raises the question of whether or not such a scenario has ever played out during the direct election era,” said Eric J. Ostermeier, who runs a Smart Politics blog for the University of Minnesota.
Since no current U.S. senator has announced retirement plans for the 2018 elections, this would be the first time since popular elections were created 104 years ago with no members of Senate retiring.
No rules in place put term limits or age limits on U.S. senators.
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