Congessional Turnover

Drew DeSilver at Pew:

[W]hen the current Congress convened in January 2021, 72% of House members and 65% of senators were new since the start of the 111th Congress in January 2009 – what we call the “12-year turnover rate.”

That degree of turnover isn’t unusual. Over the past five decades, the average 12-year turnover rate – that is, the share of seats held by different occupants between two Congresses a dozen years apart – is 69% in the House and 62% in the Senate, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of House and Senate membership rosters since the early 1970s.

Looked at another way, among the members of Congress as of June 9, about 70% of representatives (307) and nearly two-thirds of senators (63%) have held their offices for less than 12 years – equivalent to two full Senate terms or six full House terms.