The House: As 2020âs Final Contests Settle, Vacancies Arise
A Commentary By J. Miles Coleman
Thursday, February 11, 2021
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
â With the race for NY-22 settled, 2020âs House elections may finally be fully in the rearview mirror, though IA-2âs results will be reviewed by Congress.
â Before this week, we rated two special elections in Louisiana as safe for either party; with a new vacancy in TX-6, we see an imminent special election there as Likely Republican.
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â Two more districts, NM-1 and OH-11, seem likely to host special elections soon, as their incumbents have been designated for positions in the Biden administration.
Whichever Republican emerges from the primary campaign to replace retiring Senator Richard Shelby will be the odds on favorite to win in November 2022.
Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelby announces he will retire in 2022 Erica Werner Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a fixture of the Senate who chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, announced Monday that he will retire when his term ends in 2022. Shelby, 86, was first elected to the House in 1978 as a Democrat and won election to the Senate in 1986. He switched parties to become a Republican in 1994. He has been a master of steering projects to his home state and also adept at cutting deals with Democrats. He is the fourth Senate Republican to announce his retirement in 2022, and the race to replace him will become another test for the direction of the GOP in the post-Trump era.
U.S. Sen. Richard C. Shelby, the Senate’s fourth most senior member and a force in Alabama politics for more than four decades, announced Monday that he will not seek a seventh term in office in 2022.