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Steve Buyer to retire in Indiana

By Chris Cillizza  |  January 29, 2010; 10:20 AM ET

Indiana Rep. Steve Buyer will announce his retirement today, becoming the 15th Republican planning to retire or seek higher office at the end of the 111th Congress.

The Buyer news -- first reported by WISH TV in Indianapolis -- comes as House Republicans are huddling in Baltimore to plan their strategy in advance of a midterm election this fall that is likely to deliver them significant gains.

Buyer has held the 4th district, which takes in broad swaths of central Indiana, since 1992 and has had only only serious race -- a primary fight in 2002 against Rep. Brian Kerns after the two incumbents were placed in the same seat in redistricting.

The seat is strongly Republican. Sen. John McCain won 56 percent there in 2008 while President George W. Bush took 69 percent four years earlier.

While Democrats will almost certainly use no-go decisions by the likes of Buyer and Arizona Rep. John Shadegg to dispute the narrative that retirements are all on their side, close Congressional watchers know that all retirements are not created equally.

Of the 15 Republican retirements, just two of the seats have a Partisan Voting Index score that favors Democrats. (PVI is a calculation that seeks to measure the partisanship of every district against all the other districts in the country. Delaware Republican Rep. Mike Castle's district, for example, has a PVI score of D+7 meaning that it the two most recent presidential elections in performed 10 points more Democratic than the country as a whole.)

Contrast that with the fact that six of the 12 Democratic open seats have a PVI score that favors Republicans and you see that where retirements come from is more important than simply the raw numbers of those leaving.

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