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This past weekend saw the death of John McCain, who had held his Arizona US Senate seat for more than three decades. Hanna K. Brant, L. Marvin Overby, and Theodore J. Masthay write that since 1919, more than 135 Senators have died whilst in office. They write that, though the frequency of these deaths has fallen dramatically since the 1960s, the passing of senior party members like John McCain can often have important implications for how power is wielded in the Senate.

This fall, the Democrats face a challenging US Senate map, defending 25 seats to the GOP's nine. For some on the left, one ray of hope has been the retirement of four Republican Senators, leading to open seat contests. In new research, Hanna K. Brant, L. Marvin Overby, and Theodore J. Masthay suggest that this optimism may be misplaced. Studying nearly a century of Senate elections, and accounting for a number of other factors, they find that Republicans have a roughly ten percent advantage over Democrats in winning open Senate seat races.

The vast majority of the members of both houses of Congress tend to win reelection when they stand. But what about retirement? While House Republicans tend to retire at higher rates than their Democratic counterparts, this does not hold for the Senate. Theodore J. Masthay and L. Marvin Overby find that Republican and Democratic Senators retire at very similar rates, likely because they face a less arduous campaign schedule compared to those in the House, the power that the Senate gives them, and the extreme seniority of the office.