[OC] When Members of the 119th U.S. Congress Were First Elected

13 comments

1. Source: [congress.gov/members](http://congress.gov/members)

   Tools: Google Sheets and Datawrapper

2. This is interesting. I would like to see a version where the bars aren’t stacked. It’s too hard to compare—I want to compare the distributions by party.

3. Nice. I would be very interested to see a chart that shows how many incumbents were replaced in each election, maybe with an indication of how many constituencies flipped parties. Something like a population chart might work well.

4. It seems to show how few states are truly conquered. Steering in one direction for too long usually leads to a bad outcome. 

   They’re referred to as the left and right, but I think it’s more like the gas and the brake. The left pushes social change and innovation, then the right gets voted in when people need a little time to digest and process the changes. 

   All gas, no brakes?  You’ll crash your society.  All brakes, no gas?  You’ll never get anywhere and be left in the dust. 

5. I think they should all be older!  i.e. closer to death.  

6. I’m a simple man. I think time should be the x axis

7. I think Chuck Grassley was elected during the Taft administration.

8. Watch as 2026 results in an even larger number of new members of Congress than Biden’s term 

9. Try showing this data again, but as a tornado chart

10. Chuck Grassley was first elected to Congress in the Ford administration. When he was first elected to the state legislature, Eisenhower was president.

11. The fact that a plurality of Republican Congressmen have been in office less than 5 years is actually a significant reason why Congress in general and the GOP representatives more specifically, are so weak. They don’t know what they are doing. They don’t have institutional knowledge, they don’t have institutional power, and they don’t have relationships with institutions or other representatives. As such, they don’t *do* anything. And that means they are *replaceable*. Which of course means that they don’t learn or develop ways to wield power, push through causes that are important to them, or build bipartisan coalitions.

    And it is in such stark contrast to the Democrats who have a major problem in that extremely old individuals have captured leadership. I mean, in the election, Kamala Harris was positioned as the *young* alternative to Biden, but I mean, she’s *sixty*!!

12. A good 20-30 Dems need to retire this next term.

13. 68 Dems from George W or earlier. They all need to get replaced.

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