I already posted a list ranking the 132 most vulnerable members of the House. Here is a list of the 60 most vulnerable House Democrats. Rankings are based on PVI, 2004 incumbent or incumbent party performance and 2006 incumbent performance. Those who received less than 55% of the vote in 2006 are in bold, and House fresh(wo)men are in italics.
1 WI-08 (KAGEN) R+4
2 KS-02 (BOYDA) R+7
3 IN-09 (HILL) R+7
4 FL-16 (MAHONEY)R+2
5 PA-10 (CARNEY) R+8
6 AZ-05 (MITCHELL) R+4
7 TX-22 (LAMPSON) R+15
8 NY-19 (HALL) R+1
9 IL-08 (BEAN) R+5
10 TX-23 (RODRIGUEZ) R+4
11 PA-04 (ALTMIRE) R+3
12 NY-20 (GILLIBRAND) R+3
13 NC-11 (SCHULER) R+7
14 CA-11 (McNERNEY) R+3
15 MN-01 (WALZ) R+1
16 IN-02 (DONNELLY) R+4
17 NH-01 (SHEA-PORTER) R+0
18 NY-24 (ARCURI) R+1
19 KY-03 (YARMUTH) D+2
20 AZ-08 (GIFFORDS) R+1
21 LA-03 (MELANCON) R+5
22 PA-08 (MURPHY) D+3
23 GA-12 (BARROW) D+2
24 TX-17 (EDWARDS) R+18
25 FL-22 (KLEIN) D+4
26 GA-08 (MARSHALL) R+8
27 NH-02 (HODES) D+3
28 IA-03 (BOSWELL) D+1
29 OR-05 (HOOLEY) D+1
30 UT-02 (MATHESON) R+17
31 CO-07 (PERLMUTTER) D+2
32 OH-18 (SPACE) R+6
33 IN-08 (ELLSWORTH) R+9
34 IA-02 (LOEBSACK) D+7
35 CO-03 (SALAZAR) R+6
36 CT-02 (COURTNEY) D+8
37 CT-05 (MURPHY) D+4
38 VT-AL (WELSH) D+9
39 PA-07 (SESTAK) D+4
40 IA-01 (BRALEY) D+5
41 SC-05 (SPRATT) R+6
42 SD-AL (HERSETH) R+10
43 KS-03 (MOORE) R+4
44 TX-27 (ORTIZ) R+1
45 TN-04 (DAVIS) R+3
46 IN-07 (CARSON) D+9
47 PA-17 (HOLDEN) R+7
48 AR-02 (SNYDER) R+0
49 ND-AL (POMEROY) R+13
50 VA-09 (BOUCHER) R+7
51 KY-06 (CHANDLER) R+7
52 NY-01 (BISHOP) D+3
53 TX-15 (HINOJOSA) D+3
54 IL-17 (HARE) D+5
55 TX-28 (CUELLAR) R+1
56 OR-04 (DeFAZIO) D+0
57 WI-03 (KIND) D+3
58 NC-13 (MILLER) D+2
59 NC-02 (ETHERIDGE) R+3
60 WA-03 (BAIRD) D+0
A list of the sixty most vulnerable House Republicans will be generated shortly.
Who will need to the most assistance to hold their seat in 2008?
Except I have a hard time ranking the most vulnerable without understanding the race they just finished. Is Bean really top 10 material since she has established her incumbency with a second term? Especially now that her position is more relevant in the Majority? Can’t she become to IL-08 what Chris Shays has become to CT-04?
It would be helpful to know which candidates on this list are Freshman that claimed open seats and which ones unseated incumbents (which I could do myself, but would be nice on a list like this 😉 )
I tend to agree, Lampson will have the hardest time defending his seat. Especially since Shelley S-G received more votes for the special election than he did for the general.
I would also put Marshall (GA-08) and Barrow (GA-12) high on the list given their poor performance as incumbents in a Democratic wave year against B list opponents.
It looks like you’re using Cook PVI’s here, which tend to produce a grossly distorted picture because they do are based on Presidential vote. Places like the IN-08 while shown as R+9 here in fact lean heavily Democratic, having been drawn that way by the Democratic House majority in 2001 and passed with the support of then Governor O’Bannon.
The problem is that presidential vote tells us very little about how a voter will vote given no other information other than party.