Another topic in the slicing and dicing of our newly compiled presidential-election-by-congressional-district data: where are the split districts? In other words, which districts won by Obama have Republican representatives, and which districts won by McCain have Democratic representatives? (CQ already beat me to the punch on this particular question, but to give it a new spin, I’m arranging them in order of the districts’ three-way margin, which gives at least some relative sense of vulnerability.)
| District | Republican | Obama Margin |
District | Democrat | McCain Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LA-02 | Cao | 49.3 | MS-04 | Taylor | 35.5 |
| DE-AL | Castle | 25.0 | TX-17 | C. Edwards | 35.2 |
| IL-10 | Kirk | 22.8 | OK-02 | Boren | 31.2 |
| PA-06 | Gerlach | 16.6 | TN-04 | L. Davis | 29.8 |
| WA-08 | Reichert | 14.8 | AL-02 | Bright | 27.4 |
| IL-06 | Roskam | 13.2 | ID-01 | Minnick | 26.6 |
| PA-15 | Dent | 12.4 | TN-06 | Gordon | 25.3 |
| IL-13 | Biggert | 9.6 | LA-03 | Melancon | 24.0 |
| MI-06 | Upton | 9.5 | MS-01 | Childers | 23.5 |
| NJ-02 | Lo Biondo | 9.3 | AL-05 | Griffith | 22.9 |
| MI-11 | McCotter | 9.2 | MO-04 | Skelton | 22.7 |
| IL-16 | Manzullo | 8.5 | AR-01 | Berry | 20.3 |
| IA-04 | Latham | 7.5 | VA-09 | Boucher | 19.1 |
| OH-12 | Tiberi | 7.5 | AR-04 | Ross | 18.8 |
| MI-08 | Rogers | 6.9 | MD-01 | Kratovil | 18.5 |
| VA-10 | Wolf | 6.8 | UT-02 | Matheson | 18.1 |
| MN-03 | Paulsen | 6.4 | WV-01 | Mollohan | 15.3 |
| NY-23 | McHugh | 5.2 | WV-03 | Rahall | 13.5 |
| CA-45 | Bono Mack | 4.6 | GA-08 | Marshall | 13.4 |
| CA-50 | Bilbray | 4.2 | TN-08 | Tanner | 13.3 |
| FL-10 | Young | 4.1 | KY-06 | Chandler | 12.2 |
| CA-26 | Dreier | 4.1 | PA-04 | Altmire | 10.5 |
| WI-01 | Ryan | 3.9 | AZ-01 | Kirkpatrick | 10.2 |
| NJ-07 | Lance | 3.5 | AR-02 | Snyder | 9.9 |
| CA-24 | Gallegly | 2.8 | FL-02 | Boyd | 9.7 |
| FL-18 | Ros-Lehtinen | 2.3 | ND-AL | Pomeroy | 8.6 |
| MI-04 | Camp | 1.9 | SD-AL | Herseth | 8.4 |
| VA-04 | Forbes | 1.5 | PA-10 | Carney | 8.3 |
| NE-02 | Terry | 1.2 | SC-05 | Spratt | 7.2 |
| WI-06 | Petri | 1.2 | OH-18 | Space | 6.7 |
| CA-25 | McKeon | 1.1 | AZ-08 | Giffords | 5.9 |
| CA-44 | Calvert | 0.9 | NC-11 | Shuler | 5.6 |
| CA-48 | Campbell | 0.7 | NC-07 | McIntyre | 5.6 |
| CA-03 | Lungren | 0.5 | AZ-05 | Mitchell | 4.5 |
| — | — | — | IN-08 | Ellsworth | 3.9 |
| — | — | — | MN-07 | C. Peterson | 2.7 |
| — | — | — | OH-06 | C. Wilson | 2.7 |
| — | — | — | OH-16 | Boccieri | 2.6 |
| — | — | — | CO-03 | Salazar | 2.5 |
| — | — | — | PA-17 | Holden | 2.5 |
| — | — | — | VA-05 | Perriello | 2.3 |
| — | — | — | NY-29 | Massa | 2.2 |
| — | — | — | FL-24 | Kosmas | 2.0 |
| — | — | — | NY-13 | McMahon | 1.8 |
| — | — | — | IN-09 | Hill | 1.8 |
| — | — | — | NM-02 | Teague | 1.3 |
| — | — | — | CO-04 | Markey | 0.9 |
| — | — | — | PA-12 | Murtha | 0.4 |
| — | — | — | PA-03 | Dahlkemper | 0.006 |
There’s a definite tilt in the playing field that happened with 2008, compared with 2004: there are 34 Obama/R districts and 49 McCain/D districts. In the aftermath of the 2004 election, there were 18 Kerry/R districts and 41 Bush/D districts. The numbers have moved not only because Obama picked up a number of suburban districts that previously resided in the R+5 area (especially in places like California and Michigan), but also because of some inroads we’ve made at getting Blue Dogs elected in districts that were dark red in both 2004 and 2008. (Remember how the disparity in Kerry/R and Bush/D districts was part of the “permanent Republican majority?” They were going to slowly pick off all those Bush/D districts while, of course, we picked off nothing and the presidential bar didn’t move, either.)
I don’t want to cause your eyes to fall out by printing the whole 2004 list, so here’s the top 10 in each category (worth seeing if only to see what a swath we’ve cut through the moderate Republicans in the last four years):
| District | Republican | Kerry Margin |
District | Democrat | Bush Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IA-02 | Leach | 11.5 | TX-17 | C. Edwards | 39.7 |
| CT-02 | Simmons | 9.7 | MS-04 | Taylor | 37.2 |
| DE-AL | Castle | 7.6 | UT-02 | Matheson | 34.7 |
| IA-01 | Nussle | 6.5 | MO-04 | Skelton | 29.0 |
| PA-07 | Weldon | 6.1 | ND-AL | Pomeroy | 27.4 |
| CT-04 | Shays | 6.1 | SD-AL | Herseth | 21.5 |
| IL-10 | Kirk | 5.5 | AL-05 | Cramer | 20.3 |
| NH-02 | Bass | 5.0 | VA-09 | Boucher | 20.2 |
| FL-22 | Shaw | 4.9 | TN-06 | Gordon | 20.0 |
| PA-08 | Fitzpatrick | 3.4 | OK-02 | Boren | 18.8 |
is acting idiotic. obama wins his district by 9 points and he barely wins against a token challenger, but he’s up there every day with boehner and cantor and the other rethugs. man needs to wise up before 2010.
to look at the lists from 2004 and realize that we still hold all of the top 10 Bush/D districts from that year; conversely, just one of the top ten Kerry/R districts is still held by a Republican.
We gotta put in a lot of effort in these districts to reap the benefits of big Dem gains in the House delegation like we did in 2000.
Cao is clearly a special case.
But you might also want to look at when each rep was first elected, and how much they won by in 2008.
Maybe McCotter if someone will stand up. On the plus side there is every chance several of the top echelons could be open next year (Castle, Kirk, Gerlach, Roskam, Biggert).
On the McCain side they are mainly entrenched incumbents. Chet Edwards is probably fine in a midterm and outside of a year-that-won’t-be-mentioned-by-name type GOP landslide. Clear vulnerabilities are Bright, Minnick, Griffith and Kratovil together with any retirements that might open up otherwise safe seats.
I continue to believe the most likely midterm result is upper single digit Republican gains in the House and 2-4 minimum net Democratic gains in the Senate.
District is WI-01, my home district. In the 2010 cycle this is not a competitive seat but it could be in coming cycles for a number of reasons. For one the current Rep, Paul Ryan may run for Senate in 2012 in which case this is going to be home of a really hot race regardless of anything else. But what could also happen is redistricting as the district could lose some of Janesville and take back some of Milwaukee which would make it much more democratic.