To regain control of the House, Democrats need to regain 24 seats, which despite the departures isn’t guaranteed, as Quartz reported when another senior Republican retired earlier this week:

Despite the prevailing political mood favoring them, few political prognosticators currently expect Democrats to win the chamber. The current rankings from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and the Cook Political Report expect that Republicans will maintain a bare majority in the House.

Gowdy won his district in the 2016 election with 67% of the vote over the Democratic challenger.  In a statement, Gowdy, a former prosecutor, said he looked forward to returning to the “justice system,” where he feels better suited. “Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system,” he wrote. There is an opening for a judge on the judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees South Carolina, the Charlotte Observer notes.

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