Jerry Nadler, a Democratic representative from New York, will retire next year after 34 years in Congress in a self-proclaimed move aimed at galvanizing a generational changing of the guard in the party.
Nadler, 78, who represents one of New York’s wealthiest districts covering midtown Manhattan, said he had been persuaded not to run for re-election in 2026 after witnessing the implosion of Joe Biden’s presidential bid last year. The former president was pressured into abandoning his candidacy amid widespread doubts about his age and mental acuity. He was replaced by the former vice-president, Kamala Harris, who subsequently lost the election to Donald Trump.
“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that,” Nadler told the New York Timeswhich broke the news of his forthcoming retirement.
He told the newspaper that a younger replacement “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more”.
Nadler, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, suggested – without naming names – that other ageing Democrats should consider following his lead amid a widespread call for an infusion of new blood to combat Trump’s “America first” agenda.
“I’m not saying we should change over the entire party,” he said. “But I think a certain amount of change is very helpful, especially when we face the challenge of Trump and his incipient fascism.”
He said he had previously hesitated to step aside at a time when he believes Trump is threatening the basis of US democracy. Nadler was chair of the House judiciary committee between 2019 and 2023 and played a leading role in Trump’s two impeachments during the president’s first administration.
His decision to retire comes after a 26-year-old Rhodes scholar, Liam Elkind, announced in July that he would challenge him in a primary campaign.
Elkind told CNN that he was challenging Nadler after concluding that he lacked the energy or mentality to rebuild the Democrats or mount an effective challenge to Trump.
The Times cited a person familiar with Nadler’s thinking as saying that he would likely endorse a former aide, Micah Lasher, 43, as his replacement in what is anticipated to be a crowed primary field.
Long seen as a member of the Democrats’ left-leaning wing, Nadler recently endorsed the New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won the party primary against more established contenders after promising a rent freeze and government-owned grocery stores to combat cost of living rises.
The Democrats have met a clamor of calls for a generational shift since losing the White House, the House and the Senate in last year’s elections.
The drumbeat intensified after the new Congress returned last January, when senior party figures sought and retained key committee roles in the face of challenges from younger members.
In one instance, representative Gerry Connolly beat off a challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to become the party’s ranking members of the House oversight committee, only to announce in April that he was resigning the post after a return of the cancer for which he had previously been successfully treated.
Connolly died the following month at the age of 75.
