The Staff Who Know Your Issue May Not Be Back

Whatever happens on November 3, at least seventy-one members of Congress have already told you they won't be back. Many of the staff who know your issues won't be either.

As of October 2, eleven senators and sixty House members were not seeking reelection, according to Ballotpedia. That is more than in any of the last four cycles at the same point. Thirteen more incumbents, two senators and eleven House members, had already lost their primaries.

Washington runs on a quiet assumption: the people who know your issue will still be there next year. In January, that assumption gets tested.

When a seat changes parties, the staff almost always turns over. When it doesn't, the holdovers often stay for continuity and move on once the new member has hired a team of their own.

Committee staff are no safe harbor either. In the Senate, committee budgets, and so committee staff, track the party split. A 50–50 Senate has meant equal budgets, and a wider margin gives the majority more money and more people. In the House, the minority traditionally receives about one-third of committee staff, whatever the margin. If control of either chamber changes, the committee staff changes with it.

Most companies will find out the first time they ask a new office to pick up a conversation it was never part of. The government affairs teams that come through it well are doing the staff work now:

• Mapping which departing offices hold their issues.
• Writing down the history behind the language while the people who drafted it can still check it.
• Building relationships with staff on both sides of each committee, and with the career agency staff who stay.

The election decides who holds the gavel. The turnover decides how much of your Washington work starts over. Teams that wait for the swearing-in will spend the first half of 2027 introducing themselves.