Miles Parks

One, this is a record number of people who say they're not coming back.

They are announcing it a record early amount of time before Election Day, and that doesn't even account for the fact that many of these incumbents might lose in the primaries or in the general election.

It's important to note, though, Miles, there's always turnover, especially in these midterm years when, as Domenico mentioned, the party in power tends to have a rough time.

There are more Republicans planning to leave than Democrats, and many of those are notable names in Congress, longtime party leaders like Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Republican Mitch McConnell.

So it's not just some of these minor players that we're talking about here.

Well, I can't imagine being in Washington right now is a very, very fun place to be.

Like Domenico mentioned, it's a narrow majority in the House, narrow majority in the Senate.

With the lack of competitive races, that's not likely to change even if who's in charge changes hands.

On the Democratic side, it has been notable that you have many of these older incumbents that are leaving, like Pelosi and like Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Gary Peters.

And then you have the knock-on effect of these ambitious House members running to replace them in the Senate.

Republicans, you do have some of that generational change, but there's also very few remaining lawmakers who are Trump critics, like North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis, Nebraska Representative Don Bacon.

and people in various stages of leadership in the Republican Party and on subcommittees and committees that will not have much power if Democrats take back the House.

There's not really a lot looking ahead for the final two years of President Trump's final term either, so there's not really much to look forward to if you're a Republican in Congress these next two years.

I do want to flag one thing, though.

It is also notable how many lawmakers that we are seeing that do not want to stay in Washington and want to go back to try to leave their state.

Typically, it is a more prestigious thing, and you see a lot of governors running for Senate.

But this time, we actually have four senators that say they want to leave, they want to run to be governor of their state.

Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Michael Bennett of Colorado, that's a big sign too.

Okay, Miles, with the first pick in the draft, I'm taking Iowa.

Here's why.