Is Debbie Stabenow truly “inspired by a new generation of leaders”? Or is she despairing in the face of a brutal 2024 campaign cycle with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket? The Senate session has only just opened, and Democrats have their first retirement already:

Inspired by a new generation of leaders, I have decided to pass the torch in the U.S. Senate. I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election and will leave the U.S. Senate at the end of my term on January 3, 2025.

Read my full statement:https://t.co/qYJE6lyRJ3 pic.twitter.com/Fq659Aevs0

— Sen. Debbie Stabenow (@SenStabenow) January 5, 2023

It’s worth noting that Stabenow will only turn 73 in April. That may be retirement age in most jobs, but in the Senate it’s practically the flower of youth. Dianne Feinstein is old enough to be her mother and Chuck Grassley old enough to be her father, and neither of them have announced their retirement. (Yet, anyway.) Grassley just easily won another term in November, in fact.

Democrats may have expected Stabenow to stick around for another term to help them out of a big jam. While plenty of ink and pixels have been expended on the disappointing midterm results for Republicans, Democrats really missed their chance last November. Republicans had to defend nine more seats than Democrats did, and they had five incumbents retire. Democrats still only got a net pickup of a single seat.

In 2024, Democrats have to defend eleven more seats than Republicans, and Michigan wasn’t even one of the tougher seats to hold. Seats in red states like Montana, Ohio, West Virginia, and maybe even Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin would be tougher to defend with current incumbents than Michigan. Stabenow’s retirement will mean a significant shift of resources to hold that seat, especially with an unpopular president like Biden topping the ticket.

With that said, Democrats did pretty well in Michigan in the midterm. Gretchen Whitmer defeated Tudor Dixon by a surprisingly strong double-digit advantage, 54.5/43.9. That was in a cycle dominated by Republican missteps and the lingering unhappiness over Donald Trump and the 2020 election controversy, plus the acute fallout over the Dobbs decision. If Trump isn’t on the GOP ticket and Biden is, how well can Democrats compete statewide in Michigan? Biden beat Trump in Michigan two years ago by less than two points.

One has to assume that this question also had a part in Stabenow’s calculations. If so, she’s likely less impressed with “a new generation of leaders” than she’s unwilling to shill for a leader who should have been retired a generation earlier. And if Stabenow’s making that calculation, you’d better believe that Jon Tester is, Joe Manchin is, Sherrod Brown is, and so on.