Tag: SSP Quiz

Poor Atrios must be beating his head against the wall dealing with a mental midget like Joe Klein. To recap: Klein is one of those beltway asshats who thinks that primary challenges to incumbents are (to use his reference) something to delight the likes of Robespierre. In other words, anyone who supported Ned Lamont is a  bloodthirsty tyrant and, presumably, deserves to be guillotined. Just call me St. Just.

Anyhow, the immediate context for this non-debate is the possibility of a primary challenge to Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA-10), who sits in a district that went for Kerry 59-40. Suffice it to say, I’m not worried that, even if Tauscher were to lose a primary, a Republican would win the general. I say that in no small part because the bluest seat currently held by a Republican is DE-AL, which went 53-46 Kerry – and as many of you know, there are only eight GOP-held Kerry districts overall. In short, the GOP no longer plays very well in districts where voters like to pull the Dem lever at the top of the ticket.

But that’s not to say that “lethal” primaries never happen (as in, lethal to the party in which the primary upset took place). Indeed, they occasionally do. One relatively recent example: Party-switcher Michael Forbes (R to D) narrowly lost his primary in 2000, and the woman who beat him, Regina Seltzer, went on to lose to Republican Felix Grucci that fall.

So, going back to, say, 1980 (just to pick an arbitrary limit), what other lethal primaries for Senate and House seats are you aware of? And, so that we have a basis of comparison, how many incumbents lost primaries overall?

Alright, another installment in our occasional trivia series. In 1994, no GOP incumbents lost in either the House or the Senate, much like the Dem performance in 2006. Needless to say, years like that are unusual.

So, all you election wizards, tell us: In the intervening years (ie, 1996-2004), how many incumbent Senators and Representatives lost their re-election bids, in both parties? This range includes two rounds of redistricting (nationwide in 2002 and Texas in 2004), but go ahead and include those names in your lists as well.

If you can tell us a little bit about why the incumbents lost, so more the better!

Alright, since you guys proved to be super-geniuses the last time we posed a trivia question, let’s try another – or two, actually:

How many Democratic incumbents who lost in 1994 attempted comebacks in 1996? And how many won?

With news that defeated incumbents like Jeb Bradley (NH-01) and Jim Ryun (KS-02) will seek rematches in 2008, this topic is obviously an important one right now.

By my count, there were 76 Republican freshmen elected in 1994. (Thirty-four beat incumbent Dems, 24 won Dem-held open seats, and another 18 held on to GOP-held open seats.) According to the Cook Political Report, twelve of these frosh went on to lose their first re-election campaigns in 1996.

Who were these one-term wonders?