Why did the Democrats lose so badly in 2010?

[Coolface Sock #42069]

People were ticked off over the affordable care act, the Wall Street bailouts, and the sluggish economy, plus the democrats new Obama coalition was made into a majority by low info voters who don't vote in midterms.

This is it to a T.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

2010 is extremely obvious- weakest point of employment combined with Obamacare/cap and trade anger.  The 2014 GOP wave is the harder one to explain, particularly as it is very rare for a party to get wiped out during both midterms of the same presidency.

Don't forget the bank bailouts.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

2010 is extremely obvious- weakest point of employment combined with Obamacare/cap and trade anger.  The 2014 GOP wave is the harder one to explain, particularly as it is very rare for a party to get wiped out during both midterms of the same presidency.

Don't forget the bank bailouts.

You mean the ones engineered by the Bush administration?

Yes, those. Whether fair or not, those were blamed on the Democrats.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

A very large part of why Dems lost so badly was that Obama allowed his people to take over the DNC and tear down the 50 state strategy that had served the party so well from 2005-2008.  With this infrastructure gone, most Democrats elected with its help had no support to help them withstand Republican attacks and onslaughts.  

Had the infrastructure that Howard Dean had set up in 2005 and 2006 remained in place, Democrats may have held their losses to a more normal amount (around 30 seats in the House).  Remember that Dems lost multiple seats that they should have been able to hold even in a bad year like FL-22, IL-17, TX-27, NY-24, NC-02, MN-08, etc.

FL-22: Klein voted for ObamaCare
NY-24: Republicans held that seat before the 2006 Dem Wave.
MN-08: Cravack wiped the floor with Oberstar in a debate.

No way should Dems should have lost TX-27 though I agree with you there.

That iteration of IL-17 was not the same one we have today, either. It's PVI was probably within a point of even. It was considerably further south than the current IL-17.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

A very large part of why Dems lost so badly was that Obama allowed his people to take over the DNC and tear down the 50 state strategy that had served the party so well from 2005-2008.  With this infrastructure gone, most Democrats elected with its help had no support to help them withstand Republican attacks and onslaughts.  

Had the infrastructure that Howard Dean had set up in 2005 and 2006 remained in place, Democrats may have held their losses to a more normal amount (around 30 seats in the House).  Remember that Dems lost multiple seats that they should have been able to hold even in a bad year like FL-22, IL-17, TX-27, NY-24, NC-02, MN-08, etc.

FL-22: Klein voted for ObamaCare
NY-24: Republicans held that seat before the 2006 Dem Wave.
MN-08: Cravack wiped the floor with Oberstar in a debate.

No way should Dems should have lost TX-27 though I agree with you there.

That iteration of IL-17 was not the same one we have today, either. It's PVI was probably within a point of even. It was considerably further south than the current IL-17.

I think it was still like D+3.  The point is that more Democrats in favorable.enough districts should have been able to properly use the advantages of incumbency to hold on even in 2010. 

But the GOP ran up a 6.8% margin in the nationwide House race that year, which would have made a D+3 seat exceedingly hard for any Democrat to win. I think most seats with that level of Democratic lean fell in 2010 because it was a wave if we've ever seen one.

Plus, the Illinois Dems were at the height of their unpopularity with Rod Blagojevich having just become the first Illinois governor to be impeached and removed from office, enough so that Bill Brady (basically a Generic R candidate, much more conservative than Bruce Rauner) came within a percentage point of the Illinois governor's mansion and probably could have won it had he campaigned more in the collar counties.