We went a long way toward swinging the needle in the House to the left in the 2006 election. Obviously, this is a direct result of picking up 30+ seats, but there’s more to it than that. It’s also a matter of replacing Republicans with the right people: replacing a right-wing nutter with a progressive goes a much longer way toward than replacing a moderate Republican with a Blue Dog, and we did more of the former. In addition, most of our open seat replacements wound up being more liberal than their predecessors.
To explore this, I matched up the DW-Nominate score* for each representative in each seat in the 109th Congress (2005-2006) vs. the 110th Congress (2007-2008). (I also converted the scores into discrete ranks from most liberal to least liberal, as DW-Nominate scores don’t look very meaningful at first glance. However, I’m subtracting the scores, not the ranks, so that we’re measuring actual shifts in voting records, rather than measuring distortion caused by an increase in the size of the Democratic caucus.) Let’s start by looking at the seats where the overall shift was the largest (not coincidentally, these were the seats that switched from R to D).
| District | 109th Rep. | 109th Score | Rank | 110th Rep. | 110th Score | Rank | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MN-01 | Gutknecht (R) | 0.747 | 414 | Walz (D) | -0.337 | 161 | -1.084 |
| CO-07 | Beauprez (R) | 0.631 | 378 | Perlmutter (D) | -0.317 | 173 | -0.948 |
| WI-08 | Green (R) | 0.561 | 353.5 | Kagen (D) | -0.333 | 165 | -0.894 |
| KS-02 | Ryun (R) | 0.637 | 383 | Boyda (D) | -0.239 | 197 | -0.876 |
| NH-02 | Bass (R) | 0.479 | 302.5 | Hodes (D) | -0.397 | 126 | -0.876 |
| IN-08 | Hostettler (R) | 0.753 | 415 | Ellsworth (D) | -0.118 | 229 | -0.871 |
| NH-01 | Bradley (R) | 0.467 | 298 | Shea-Porter (D) | -0.398 | 124 | -0.865 |
| TX-23 | Bonilla (R) | 0.482 | 305.5 | Rodriguez (D) | -0.362 | 147.5 | -0.844 |
| AZ-05 | Hayworth (R) | 0.688 | 399 | Mitchell (D) | -0.148 | 224 | -0.836 |
| KY-03 | Northup (R) | 0.431 | 279.5 | Yarmuth (D) | -0.401 | 122 | -0.832 |
More over the flip…
In case you’re wondering which GOP to Dem switch made the least difference, the answer may surprise you: it was in PA-08, which was one of the few cases where we went from a moderate Republican (Fitzpatrick: 0.213 (207)) to a Blue Dog (Murphy: – 0.233 (200)). (Patrick Murphy gets a lot of netroots credit for his anti-war stance, but he’s pretty economically conservative.)
Now let’s look at seats where the leftward shift was the greatest but where the same party kept the seat (and in some cases, the same person kept the seat).
| District | 109th Rep. | 109th Score | Rank | 110th Rep. | 110th Score | Rank | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HI-02 | Case (D) | -0.222 | 184 | Hirono (D) | -0.57 | 40.5 | -0.348 |
| TX-04 | Hall (R) | 0.453 | 287.5 | Hall (R) | 0.249 | 237 | -0.204 |
| FL-11 | Davis (D) | -0.292 | 166.5 | Castor (D) | -0.459 | 88 | -0.167 |
| FL-13 | Harris (R) | 0.561 | 353.5 | Buchanan (R) | 0.447 | 294 | -0.114 |
| TN-09 | Ford (D) | -0.322 | 155 | Cohen (D) | -0.432 | 106.5 | -0.11 |
| MD-03 | Cardin (D) | -0.352 | 142 | Sarbanes (D) | -0.46 | 87 | -0.108 |
| MN-05 | Sabo (D) | -0.583 | 31 | Ellison (D) | -0.674 | 15 | -0.091 |
| NV-02 | Gibbons (R) | 0.641 | 386.5 | Heller (R) | 0.561 | 355.5 | -0.08 |
| OH-10 | Kucinich (D) | -0.727 | 7 | Kucinich (D) | -0.795 | 2 | -0.068 |
| OK-05 | Istook (R) | 0.601 | 365 | Fallin (R) | 0.537 | 340 | -0.064 |
I’m not really sure what overcame Ralph Hall. He switched to the Republicans in 2004 in order to survive the DeLay-mander, so my best guess is that he may have been overcompensating in 2005 and 2006 in order to prove his Republican bona fides and avoid a primary challenge, but now that he’s more safely ensconced in his seat, he’s reverting more toward his original Blue Doggish tendencies.
Finally, let’s look at the seats where there was the greatest rightward shift. If you look at the raw numbers, you might think the House as a whole moved to the right: there was a leftward progression in 149 seats and a rightward movement in 154 seats (with the score staying exactly the same in the other 132 seats). However, most of those rightward shifts are extremely small fractions, perhaps as the remaining Republicans closed ranks; a few bigger shifts resulted from open seats (both D and R-held). None of the shifts is anywhere near the magnitude of what occurred in seats that went from R to D.
| District | 109th Rep. | 109th Score | Rank | 110th Rep. | 110th Score | Rank | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OH-04 | Oxley (R) | 0.434 | 281.5 | Jordan (R) | 0.772 | 417 | 0.338 |
| MI-07 | Schwarz (R) | 0.317 | 229 | Walberg (R) | 0.623 | 374.5 | 0.306 |
| GA-09/10 | Norwood (R) | 0.711 | 405 | Broun (R) | 0.998 | 433 | 0.287 |
| NE-03 | Osborne (R) | 0.362 | 243.5 | Smith (R) | 0.627 | 376 | 0.265 |
| CA-22 | Thomas (R) | 0.399 | 261 | McCarthy (R) | 0.573 | 358 | 0.174 |
| OH-06 | Strickland (D) | -0.461 | 84 | Wilson (D) | -0.289 | 181 | 0.172 |
| TN-01 | Jenkins (R) | 0.548 | 344 | Davis (R) | 0.684 | 393.5 | 0.136 |
| IL-06 | Hyde (R) | 0.419 | 271.5 | Roskam (R) | 0.538 | 341 | 0.119 |
| GA-04 | McKinney (D) | -0.641 | 17 | Johnson (D) | -0.527 | 54 | 0.114 |
| IL-17 | Evans (D) | -0.47 | 79 | Hare (D) | -0.366 | 146 | 0.104 |
* I’m using DW-Nominate 1st dimension scores for this because, of all the methods for assessing voting records, it’s the best for doing linear, historical research where one Congress is compared against another. DW-Nominate scores reflect all votes on all roll calls, so there isn’t the cherry-picking problem that other aggregators run into. In some ways, I’d prefer to be using Progressive Punch or National Journal scores, as I’ve done on previous projects; they’re scored 100 to 0, and people can easily mentally convert them into the A-to-F grading scale. However, in addition to the distortion problems that come with those methods, there’s the matter of older National Journal and CQ scores being behind paid firewalls, and the matter of older Progressive Punch scores being available only as lifetime scores rather than being broken down by year or congress.
Here is their explanation of how the scores work; for those of you who aren’t professional statisticians, what you need to know is that the scores basically run between – 1 and 1, with – 1 being most liberal and 1 being most conservative. My eventual goal is to build a database that examines the relationship between DW-Nominate scores and PVIs over the decades, but, please, give me some time on that.
Not surprising that most of the movements in voting patterns this cycle went our way. The same will probably happen this cycle once we elect our new crop of great progressives like Kissell, Kirkpatrick, Himes, Madia, Burner, Maffei, Boccieri, Halvorson, Adler, Stender, Heinrich, Kilroy, Seals, etc.
Case and Ford were two candidates I was glad to see replaced by more progressive reps in those districts.
Most probably already saw that John McSame is calling his home state a swing state.
That’s great news for Congressional races in Arizona, specifically in McSame’s old Congressional District 3, currently held by John Shadegg.
These two Johns have nothing on Bob Lord. Lord was the first to be added to Orange to Blue on Monday: http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
I’d watch out if I were John Shadegg. The blue wave of change is coming.
I love this so much. Keep up the fantastic work!
Judging by the Out of Wack index and the issues section of the Democrat running I would guess that defeating Scott Garnett and replacing him with Dennis Shulman would be the one where we would get the biggest change. Walberg, Shadegg, Fossella and H. Wilson are some of the others where we might have big changes.
By the way. I put this in another thread but I don’t think you saw this so here it is again. Some local press for the out of wack index.
http://www.minnesotaindependen…
The Dem Senate class of 2006 has already roven very impressive. Whitehouse (RI), Klobuchar (MN), Cardin (MD), McCaskill (MO), Tester (MT), Menendez (NJ), Brown (OH), Casey (PA), Sanders (VT) and Webb (VA) have all met or exceeded my expectations and have been quite progressive. I really think that our 2006 class could have the biggest impact of any Senate class in a long time before they are gone. Hopefully 2008 will rival that class!
Ahead of Kucinich!!!?
And who’s #435 for that matter?
that Gutneckt was further to the right than Ryun, he always struck me as moderately conservative. And, look at Ford, for all the flack he always got for being to conservative his scores weren’t that bad, about in the middle of the party.
would also probably one of the biggest improvements of the cycle!
He’s at 0.923, or 431st out of 435 in Congress. And in an R+6, he’s also very vulnerable according to the PVI/Vote index.
The table appears to show Ellison as less liberal than Sabo, not more. Are the figures swapped around or should he not have been included in that list?
Because Democrats controlled the agenda, the average vote was significantly more progressive for this session of Congress than for the recent past. That worked for nearly all incumbents, Democratic or Republican. Within that pecking order, however, the result on Progressive Punch
One of the odd effects of the 2006 election was that it brought in a lot of conservative Democrats to replace Republicans (often moderate Republicans). Take the 17 Democrats on the Profressive Punch list who score below the cut off point (#218). Eleven of the 17 are freshmen (including Travis Childers). That’s about 18% of the total number of Democrats but 64% of the “bottom feeders.” Significantly, though, Democrats still gained 40 or even 50 points on the Progressive Punch score from a 20 or 30 to a 70 or 80.
Republican retirees are way more moderate than House Republicans as a whole. Many of our top targets are also fairly moderate by GOP standards. The result is sure to continue the effect of making Republicans more extreme. If they are elected. MD-1 is a great example. Wayne Gilchrest had the highest Progressive Punch score of any Republican this session (a 38.82). A Democratic replacement is 40 points or 50 points better but a Republican repacement like Harris is 30 or 35 points worse.
About 30% of the best scores are retiring but only about 2% of the bottom 120 scores (three of them).
Im really happy to see Walz up there as number one. He has been a lot more liberal than I think anyone expected, probably more liberal than he might have lead us to believe when getting elected.
But he is really popular. If Coleman somehow wins this year, Walz should be our nominee for 2014. It wouldn’t even be a contest. And it’s nice to give a nod to rural Minnesota state-wide candidates. We’re a really metrocentric state.