National Journal:  North Carolina Democrat  Mike McIntrye’s retirement combined with the earlier retirement announcement of Utah Democrat Jim Matheson will reduce the Blue Dog Caucus to 13 members.  

North Carolina’s Mike McIntyre will not run for reelection in 2014, he announced on Wednesday. (Politico first reported the news.) He and Utah’s Jim Matheson, who is also retiring, are two of just 15 Blue Dog moderate Democrats left in the House. Two terms back, the Blue Dogs comprised an influential bloc of 54 members. As measured by National Journal’s 2012 vote ratings, McIntyre and Matheson are the two most conservative Democrats left in the House, and Matheson’s retirement also left Democrats with very little chance of retaining his seat.

…McIntyre, a nine-term conservative Democrat, won reelection by fewer than 700 votes in 2012 after his 7th District was redrawn to be more Republican, while Mitt Romney won nearly 60 percent of the district’s votes in the presidential race. Republicans grudgingly praised McIntyre’s cultivation of a conservative image that year, and without him to defend the seat, the GOP is much more likely to win it in November.