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.
