DavidNYC’s great post about House election winners from 2008 who underperformed their district’s presidential numbers got me thinking. It left me wondering: what about the incumbents who outright lost? Were there a lot of incumbents who overperformed their district and still lost?
It turns out, yes, there were quite a few. (In fact, it’s not a difficult question at all; you can just reverse-engineer the previous diary to find the overperformers. For instance, if Jim Himes underperformed by 16 points, Chris Shays necessarily overperformed by 16.) So, while doing this, what turned out to be interesting was who the truly pathetic figures were… the ones on both sides of the aisle who underperformed their districts’ leans on their way down to their own ignominious defeats. By doing this, we can separate out the representatives who simply got swamped by a wave from those who lost purely on their own merits.
Let’s start with our five Democratic casualties:
| State | CD | Member | Party | Dem Margin | Obama Margin | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TX | 22 | Lampson | (D) | -7 | -17 | +10 |
| KS | 02 | Boyda | (D) | -4 | -12 | +8 |
| LA | 06 | Cazayoux | (D) | -8 | -16 | +8 |
| FL | 16 | Mahoney | (D) | -20 | -5 | -15 |
| LA | 02 | Jefferson | (D) | -3 | 49 | -52 |
Bill Jefferson takes the prize for futility in 2008, with a 52-point disparity. Tim Mahoney also had a run-in with his own petard, while Nick Lampson, Nancy Boyda, and Don Cazayoux overperformed their dark-red districts and still lost.
Now for the Republicans:
| State | CD | Member | Party | GOPer Margin | McCain Margin | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CT | 04 | Shays | (R) | -4 | -20 | +16 |
| NV | 03 | Porter | (R) | -5 | -12 | +7 |
| OH | 01 | Chabot | (R) | -5 | -11 | +6 |
| MI | 07 | Walberg | (R) | -2 | -6 | +4 |
| MI | 09 | Knollenberg | (R) | -9 | -13 | +4 |
| FL | 08 | Keller | (R) | -4 | -6 | +2 |
| PA | 03 | English | (R) | -2 | 0 | -2 |
| VA | 02 | Drake | (R) | -5 | -2 | -3 |
| VA | 05 | Goode | (R) | 0 | 3 | -3 |
| NY | 29 | Kuhl | (R) | -2 | 3 | -5 |
| NC | 08 | Hayes | (R) | -11 | -6 | -5 |
| CO | 04 | Musgrave | (R) | -12 | 1 | -13 |
| FL | 24 | Feeney | (R) | -16 | 2 | -18 |
| ID | 01 | Sali | (R) | -1 | 26 | -27 |
Not surprisingly, moderates Chris Shays and Jon Porter did what they could but simply got drowned by the blue tsunami in their districts. On the other hand, several unlikable wingnuts like Tim Walberg and Steve Chabot also overperformed, indicating that despite their out-of-whackness with their swing districts, they were primarily wave victims.
Instead, the majority of the GOPers who lost underperformed, some badly. Only two underperforming Republicans (Thelma Drake and Robin Hayes) were in districts that Obama narrowly won and thus have at least a partial excuse. The rest were in districts that McCain won, and have nothing to assign blame to other than their own loathsomeness. Bill Sali takes home top honors, managing to take a district that McCain won 62-36 and stil lose.
Dollar Bill probably would have won if his general election were held in November along with everybody else’s. He got 92,000 voites in his primary runoff on November 4 and just 31,000 votes (losing by 2,000) when it counted.
That one will always be hard to take.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree with this. Incumbents should and almost always do overperform their districts. It would be interesting to calculate by how much on average. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the average was more than +6 or +7, such that candidates like Wallberg and Chabot are better seen as slightly underperforming candidates, rather than particularly bad candidates like Kuhl and Hayes.
I worked on Capitol Hill when he came in as a Freshman, and was in several meetings with him. He was one of the biggest jerks I’ve met in politics.
It looks like the Obama field effort was probably a big help to Congressional Dems. All our losers except the horrible Tim Mahoney came from states Obama didn’t contest. And all their losers except Shays, Kuhl and Sali came from states that Obama did contest.
Maybe just a coincidence, but something to ponder.
I have a feeling some of them might be blue dogs
For instance Gene Taylor must be somewhere at the top
over performing Obama around 42 points
In a similar analysis, I looked at the 36 freshman Democrats elected in 2006 or special elctions in 2008. All chose to run for re-election. 30 of them increased their winning margin in their second run. Courtney of CT was the champion with a 16 point increase. Of the six that did not, four lost. The infamous Mahoney because of personal scandal, Boyda and Lampson in very red districts against stronger opponents than before, and Cazayoux because of a third party spoiler. (I agree, this one was tough to take, as was Boyda.) Of the two that won, Zack Space fell from 62% to 60% against a stronger candidate than before. No worries here. But the other one is very worrisome. Michael Arcuri in NY 24 took the open seat in 2006 with 54%, then, as the incumbent, squeaked out a 51% win in 2008. (He may have done slightly better than this as the finals numbers came in.) What the hell happened here? As a moderate Democrat in a swing district, he should have done much better than this. By comparison, freshmen Gillibrand and Hall in neighboring districts improved their margins by 9% and 7% respectively. I would appreciate any thoughts on why Arcuri so underperformed.