Arnav Goyal & Vivaan Gupta — August 25, 2026
Being an incumbent has always been one of the safest bets in the political world. With the help of name recognition and other advantages that incumbents usually get from financial and institutional benefits, throughout the history of American politics, candidates have been reelected to the House at a rate of over 90%. However, the incumbents’ advantage has seen a shake-up in 2026. By mid-August, at least a dozen representatives and two senators who ran for their party’s renomination lost the primary election. This outcome can be considered one of the most disappointing for incumbents in any electoral year—not influenced by redistricting—in the whole country. Adding the number of incumbents who abandoned their campaigns due to ethics scandals, it is reasonable to state that this election year has been the most disastrous primary period for members of Congress in more than a decade.
What distinguishes this particular year of political life is not just the large number of failures, but also the multiple reasons behind them. It is not one single storm of political transformation, but rather three different storms that affect Capitol Hill together now. It includes a powerful attempt by President Trump to secure the loyalty of his own party, the restless and well-funded Democratic base that demands generational changes, and a combination of individual scandals, which have proven to be fatal for incumbents, even in the safest districts.
The Scale of Anti-Incumbency
Nevertheless, numbers are only half the answer. Based on the results of elections, most of which were held by the end of mid-August, seven incumbent Democratic Representatives, four incumbent Republican Representatives, and two incumbent Republican senators were denied renomination. This number is the same as or higher than the current benchmark, according to political analysts. The string of defeats by incumbent Democrats brings the 2026 cycle to parity with 2012 as being the worst season for House Democratic incumbents this century. In the Senate, the last incumbent senator who was denied renomination was Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012. In general, the last time there were several incumbent senators who failed in their primary election was 2010, the year of the Tea Party wave. In the current cycle, two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, were defeated by primary opponents, the first time that several Republican senators were voted out by their party since the 2008 wave elections, when five Republican senators were denied renomination.
Still, not every election result aligns with this anti-incumbency trend. Brad Sherman, a Democratic Representative of the Los Angeles area, who himself has been able to fend off his challenger, points out that almost all 200 House Democratic incumbents running for re-election faced a younger or more progressive opponent — but the vast majority of them have not lost. This suggests that the widespread failure of incumbency to guarantee reelection is not happening because being the incumbent has lost its political significance, but rather that a combination of circumstances — personal disloyalty to Donald Trump, old age with a restless base, and personal scandals — have made 2026 a particularly trying year for incumbents on both sides of the political aisle.
Trump’s Loyalty Purge
One of the most important changes within the Republican Party has come from the willingness of Trump to wield primaries as a weapon of political discipline. Where endorsements once raised funds, in 2026 they have become more of a test of loyalty, and Trump has shown a willingness to expend political capital to prove the penalty for disloyalty.
Thomas Massie of Kentucky is perhaps the most notable example. A libertarian Republican who has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2012, and who was in agreement with his fellow party members around 91% of the time, by his own estimate, Massie managed to irritate Trump in two ways. First, he voted against Trump’s flagship tax reform law twice. Second, he co-sponsored a discharge petition with Democrat Ro Khanna in an effort to release the Epstein Files. Trump devoted months to finding a challenger for Massie and eventually endorsed Ed Gallrein, a Navy SEAL who was previously a relative stranger to politics. Trump campaigned for Gallrein personally and referred to Massie as a “totally ineffective LOSER.” Aside from Trump’s super PAC and pro-Israel interest groups, many outside organizations spent millions on the Massie-Gallrein race, which cost in total more than $32 million — the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, exceeding the $25 million campaign to defeat progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman in 2024.
Other races followed suit. To oppose Senator Bill Cassidy, who incurred the president’s wrath after casting a vote to impeach him in his 2021 trial, Trump selected Representative Julia Letlow, who won the primary to unseat Cassidy. In Texas, the president backed scandal-ridden Attorney General Ken Paxton to oust Senator John Cornyn. Paxton emerged victorious, making John Cornyn the first incumbent senator from Texas in more than 50 years to lose renomination. Like the Massie-Gallrein race, Paxton and Cornyn’s showdown quickly became very expensive, highlighting a key difference in Trump’s 2026 endorsements. While the president has always passionately thrown his support behind certain candidates, his camp has been very active this cycle by targeting specific members for certain votes and raising record amounts of money, perhaps displaying just how important loyalty is to the president.
Democrats’ Generational Reckoning
Unlike the Republican storyline, which is based on the power of an individual, the Democratic storyline is based on a certain structure: the need for a generational and ideological shift has been strong enough to bring down incumbents who have never been involved in any scandals.
What is truly surprising about the phenomenon that is being discussed is its scale. Groups such as the Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have nominated 282 candidates in this election cycle for congressional office, 123 of whom won primaries in what researchers call a purely district-based phenomenon, which means that it is possible to win races only in strongly Democratic districts and no other places. Additionally, the organization founded by the former Vice Chair of the DNC, David Hogg, Leaders We Deserve, organized a $20 million campaign aimed at ousting incumbents in safe Democratic districts in favor of younger candidates. This current progressive wave can be compared to the Tea Party wave of 2010, which primarily served to reshape the Republican Party.
The results have rolled in quickly and created political shockwaves. Democratic Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar lost to state Representative Donavan McKinney, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, despite outspending him in a heavily Democratic Detroit-area district. In New York, Representative Dan Goldman was beaten by Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller who ran with the endorsement of Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who himself won over establishment candidate Andrew Cuomo last year. Other incumbent Democrats, such as veteran representatives Diana DeGette in Colorado and Adriano Espaillat in New York, lost to DSA-backed candidates as well. In Connecticut, John Larson, a 78-year-old three-decade incumbent, lost by over 20 points to 47-year-old former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. This is an interesting case, since Larson was actually positioning himself as the more progressive candidate in the race, suggesting that the movement isn’t just ideological, but age-based as well. And finally, Texas Representative Julie Johnson lost to Colin Allred after Allred attacked her for stock trading while in Congress, something which the progressive camp has frequently spoken out against.
California is also becoming a hotbed of anti-incumbency. Primaries and top-two challenges were mounted against Democratic Representatives Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, Brad Sherman, Linda Sanchez, and Jimmy Gomez, with many involving wealthy, self-funded new candidates. While not all of those Democrats ended up losing (Sherman actually managed to beat back his insurgent challenger), the fact that several such serious intra-party contests took place against incumbents who would typically run unopposed signals a paradigm shift in what “safe” seats mean. It has also prompted a wave of preemptive retirements, with longtime figures such as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) opting to leave office to avoid difficult primaries. Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has taken notice of the situation without supporting the policies, calling it “an important moment of generational change.”
The Effect of Scandals
The third factor is a little bit more familiar, but still highly impactful this election cycle — this is a pack of notable personal scandals which have resulted in political career death, even in safe seats. In August, Florida Representative Cory Mills lost to a political newcomer, Ryan Elijah, even though he represented a district which gave a 12% advantage to the President in 2024 and had the endorsement of Trump as late as February. Mills has been investigated by the House Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice concerning domestic abuse allegations, misleading statements about his military experience, and campaign finance violations; the receipt of a restraining order against him from a former girlfriend and the release of body-camera footage reported by the Washington Post, describing Mills’ stand-down order during the separate investigation of his alleged assault, did not help the situation. Notable members of the GOP from Florida, such as Representatives Anna Paulina Luna and Mike Haridopolos, supported his opponent directly, while Trump acknowledged that he had advised Mills to drop out in favor of his competitor.
Another similar trial, but with no loss of the seat for the time being, is Ohio Representative Max Miller’s case. Police reports described allegations of physical abuse against his ex-wife Emily Moreno, the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno. The accounts of abuse included pouring boiling water over Moreno’s head, as well as the injury of their daughter. Miller has denied all charges and requested an ethics investigation on himself. Another example is North Carolina Representative Chuck Edwards, who dropped out of his race in early August due to the recommendation of the House Ethics Committee to reprimand him for unprofessional and inappropriate behavior with two young female aides, which included gifts and paid trips. He has been specifically rebuked by the committee in his attempt to defend himself, stating that not making specific proposals “immunized himself” from the harassment findings. And in one of the rare scandals involving Democrats, Los Angeles Representative Jimmy Gomez has become involved in yet another scandal of sexual misconduct allegations in the summer, including one involving his Congressional aide, making his tough ideological primary race against Justice Democrats-backed Angela Gonzales-Torres a “referendum on judgment, credibility, and trust.”
The unifying factor in all these cases is not the nature of the accusations, which differ in each case, but the stripping away of the institutional protection that members under investigation could previously rely upon. Local party officials in Florida and North Carolina disassociated themselves from scandal-ridden candidates in public, rather than acting as an intermediary; Trump, who usually supports those of his party who come under fire, kept away from Mills once the political consequences were understood. Under these conditions, a scandal would seem to strip away any protection offered by incumbency.
Structural Accelerants
Redistricting
Although 2026 is not a redistricting year in the United States, map changes mid-decade in states such as California, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas have brought about new political ground. Situations may arise where incumbents compete against each other for a certain office, or there is such a shift in a party’s map that a challenger emerges who would otherwise not.
Small-Dollar and Outside Money
Funds raised by insurgent factions for their primaries have been much higher compared to what has been seen in the past. The self-funding of some Democratic challengers in California in their failed bids against incumbents reached upwards of millions of dollars; Leaders We Deserve has raised $20 million particularly for primarying safe-seat Democrats, and on the other side, $32 million has been put into the Massie-Gallrein race by outsiders.
What does this mean for November?
The real effects vary by district. With red or blue districts such as Florida’s 7th, whose incumbent is Mills, and California’s 34th, whose incumbent is Gomez, the basic partisan orientation implies that, while not necessarily, but with high probability, that district will stay with the incumbent party regardless of the result, making the race in question more of a referendum on realignment rather than on electability. On some occasions, the situation is not so straightforward — Max Miller’s scandal puts a Trump +15 seat into tossup territory due to his refusal to drop out, while the departure of Chuck Edwards left the Republicans fractured against a well-funded Blue Dog Democrat in a seat where Trump only won by 8 points.
Overall, the common problem of both parties in nomination contests can be noticed — a political base which punishes incumbents rather than helps them, no matter whether it is loyalty to the sitting president, generational ideological change, or simply holding individuals accountable. With Republicans having to fight to protect a very thin House majority, and Democrats needing three more seats to get it back, the mere number of nomination contests and retirements – -more than a dozen incumbents retiring already, with more to go — guarantees that whoever wins in November, there will be new faces in Washington. The question of whether 2026 will be an isolated case of disruption or the beginning of incumbency’s erosion is yet to be seen.
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