How many more House Democrats plan to spend more time with their families? Thirty incumbents have already chosen retirement, one of the highest numbers in decades as it is. With time running out on the recruitment window, Democrats can’t afford too many more, but Punchbowl reports that the “exodus” has not yet reached its conclusion:

Thirty House Democrats have now retired or said they’re not going to run for re-election this November. The most recent was Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), a 57-year-old former prosecutor in her fourth term in the House.

The Democratic retirement total – 30 – is the highest in three decades for the party. And while the DCCC and the Democratic leadership plays down these departures, we can say that, based on what we’re hearing, there is significant angst among the Democratic rank-and-file as they face the prospect of losing their majority after just four years in power.

“With polling numbers where they are, and the fear of losing the majority, people are heading for the hills,” one House Democrat told us Tuesday evening.

This is the polling that has House Democrats spooked, and for good reason:

It might not even be this polling that’s creating the exodus. I linked it in my earlier post, but Democratic internal polling actually looks worse than this RCP graph on the generic-ballot question. Republicans have potent arguments with voters right now on parental rights and Joe Biden’s pandemic performance, and that reality looks far uglier than this chart suggests:

Sarah Ferris and Ally Mutnick obtained private polling from the DCCC that the committee has been using in presentations over the last two weeks to show that GOP attacks using issues such as critical race theory, “defund the police” and “open borders or amnesty” are “alarmingly potent.” Siren: The DCCC warned that if Democrats don’t respond to Republican attacks on these issues, the GOP’s lead on the generic ballot jumps from 4 to 14 points in swing districts. Where it sticks: Equally alarming for Democrats, the new polling showed the GOP’s attacks are most successful with three groups Democrats desperately need in November: center-left voters, independents and Hispanic voters.

In San Francisco on Tuesday, there was new evidence of what happens when Covid fatigue bleeds into the culture wars. Residents in the liberal bastion overwhelmingly voted to recall three board of education commissioners who angered parents last year by focusing on renaming schools rather than reopening them. “Parents matter,” SIVA RAJ, one of the local activists who started the recall movement, told Playbook last night when asked what he thought the recall meant for national politics. “And governance matters.”

All of that, combined up with Biden’s incompetent and disgraceful handling of his job, has forced House Democrats to reckon with living in the minority. Most of them will ride it out, but others have no desire to show up with no real impact to make on governance. That’s especially the case if Democrats also lose control of the Senate, in which case a House minority will only be useful as a performance-art troupe. Younger members might stick around for a clown show, but older incumbents have better options … and are apparently not shy about taking them now.

How bad could it get for Nancy Pelosi? Kevin McCarthy tells Punchbowl that it could get as high as 40 retirements, matching the record in 1992 by Democrats, who nevertheless had a large majority and held it through the election. Forty retirements in 2022 would produce a much different result, and would create even more chaos for midterm planning than Pelosi is facing already. In the beginning of this exodus, retirements came in districts Pelosi will have no problem in holding and recruiting candidates.  Lately, however, that’s changed:

The other problem for Democrats, of course, is the members they’re losing. Rice’s newly drawn district is pretty solidly Democratic, but it could still be competitive without an incumbent running. It would be a longshot for Republicans, yet who knows in a bad year for Democrats. It will also force House Democratic leaders to play defense in a seat that by all rights should be easily in their column.

Other seats will be tougher for the party to hold, such as Rep. Ron Kind’s southwestern Wisconsin seat, Rep. Cheri Bustos’ Illinois seat or the seat being vacated by Rep. Stephanie Murphy in northern Florida.

And the clock is ticking, too. Filing deadlines start popping up in March, and candidate recruitment and funding requires preparation. The longer House Democrats wait to pull the trigger on retirement, the tougher it gets and the less likely Democrats will be to hold seats that might even be relatively safe under normal conditions. They can pick those back up in the next presidential cycle with a favorable turnout model, but with Biden on the ticket, Democrats have to wonder just how favorable the 2024 cycle turnout will be.

This might not be just a single cycle exodus. With all of these culture-war issues, Biden’s incompetence, and Democrats’ radicalization in play, Democrats could be looking at forty years in the desert, just as House Republicans did in the Cold War era.