Thanks to David here at Swing State Project, we now have data on how every congressional district voted for POTUS for the last several elections. This is a treasure trove for geeks like me. That list is here.
Today, I look at districts with conservative Democrats as representatives
Perhaps the best way to rate the liberalness of a representative is that taken by Jeff Lewis, Keith Poole, and their associates in the nominate data. They rank the House, from 1 to 435. I’ve provided the list of districts, and their ranks (1 is most liberal, 435 most conservative).
The most conservative Democrat is ranked 241. Here are the 42 most conservative Democrats (from least to most conservative), with the election results for POTUS :
Dist Rep Obama % Kerry % Gore %
TX 17 EDWARDS 32 30 32
CA 18 CARDOZA 59 49 53
CA 20 COSTA 60 51 55
FL 22 KLEIN 52 52 52
CO 7 PERLMUTTER 59 51 50
FL 2 BOYD 45 46 47
OH 6 WILSON 48 49 47
CO 3 SALAZAR 47 44 39
MO 4 SKELTON 38 35 40
TN 6 GORDON 37 40 49
AL 5 CRAMER (now Griffith - D)
38 39 44
KY 6 CHANDLER 43 41 42
KS 2 BOYDA (now Republican)
AR 4 ROSS 39 49 49
MN 7 PETERSON 47 43 40
SD AL HERSETH 45 38 38
TX 28 CUELLAR 56 46 50
OH 18 SPACE 45 43 41
LA 3 MELANCON 37 41 45
MS 4 TAYLOR 32 31 33
TN 8 TANNER 43 47 51
TN 4 DAVIS 34 41 49
FL 16 MAHONEY (now Republican)
NC 7 MCINTYRE 47 44 48
NY 20 GILLIBRAND (to be decided)
51 46 44
OK 2 BOREN 34 41 47
IL 8 BEAN 56 44 42
UT 2 MATHESON 39 31 31
IL 14 FOSTER 55 44 43
IN 9 HILL 49 40 42
AZ 5 MITCHELL 47 45 43
AZ 8 GIFFORDS 46 46 46
NC 11 SHULER 47 43 40
IN 8 ELLSWORTH 47 38 42
PA 10 CARNEY 45 40 41
IN 2 DONNELLY 54 43 45
PA 4 ALTMIRE 44 45 46
GA 8 MARSHALL 43 39 42
GA 12 BARROW 54 49 52
MS 1 CHILDERS 38 37 40
LA 6 CAZAYOUX (now Republican)
TX 22 LAMPSON (now Republican)
Personally, I am on the left edge of the Democratic party. I very much like my representative, Jerry Nadler, who, per Nominate data, is the 50th most liberal (I’d have to look to find where he differs from the top few); I also like that NY-08 gave over 70% to all three Democratic POTUS candidates. But not every district is like mine.
More Democrats; better Democrats. Not better Democrats, fewer Democrats. Only a few of the above seem to be in districts that could remotely be called ‘safe’. Many are in Republican strongholds. Would you rather have Cazayoux or Cassidy? Mahoney or Rooney? And those two didn’t even face primaries.
If we want to replace blue dogs with red Repubs, we can primary them and put up liberals. If we want to replace blue dogs with better Democrats, we need to educate the people.
Are there people to primary? Yes. Of this list, I’d say Cardoza, Klein, Costa and Perlmuter are candidates. Barrow, in GA-12, might be also, but not by a liberal, just by someone more in the middle of the Democratic party.
I’ll try to start coming again.
Mainly from the southeast, no surprise there. And many of those non-southern districts on the list such as the Colorado seats are trending our way.
I also like my Rep. Suzanne Kosmas. Damn it feels good to say that after having one of the most far-right Reps in the country in Tom Feeney for 6 years! Kosmas has been a rock solid liberal. Even better than I expected.
Three of your bottom 10 have decent numbers according to Progressive Punch. They have lifetime numbers or current session. I used lifetime. Klein (87th), Perlmutter (91st) and Wilson (112th) had decent scores. The worst on the bottom ten according to Progressive Punch were Ike Skelton (250th), Allen Boyd (245th), and Bart Gordon (241st). Boyd holds a special place in my hall of shame as the only Democrat in either House of Congress to endorse Bush’s privatization scheme for Social Security.
Obama carried ten of these 42 districts. In ten others, he failed to reach 40%.
Edwards is an f’in trooper. Those are some BAAAAAD numbers presidential wise and he is ranked 200th, he’s awesome.
I’m surprised Giffords voted so conservatively, I thought she’d be a little more liberal, swing district and all.
“If we want to replace blue dogs with red Repubs, we can primary them and put up liberals. If we want to replace blue dogs with better Democrats, we need to educate the people.”
Some people on the far left of our party don’t seem to realize this. Good that you do.
Also, I am in favor of threatening Klein a bit to make sure he’s safe, based on my hearing that he didn’t do particularly stellarly this re-election cycle. (Not as bad as Arcuri, obviously, but still.)
Most representatives vote their districts. There are some reps on this list who seem out of place (John Barrow, Henry Cuellar) but for the most part, conservative Democrats represent conservative districts. Democrats with safe districts usually vote liberal.