Congressional superlatives from this year

[Roll Roons]

Disregarding NY-22. Margins are all based on percentages, unless stated otherwise.

Closest call for winning D incumbent: NJ-07

Closest call for winning R incumbent: CA-25

Largest margin of defeat for an incumbent: MN-07

Smallest margin of defeat for an incumbent: CA-21

Closest R open seat hold: TX-24

Closest D open seat hold: IL-03

Closest open seat: IA-02

Closest race in the country by percentage and vote total: IA-02

Biggest R overperformance of Trump: PA-01

Biggest D overperformance of Biden: MN-07

Biggest R incumbent underperformance of Trump: MN-01

Biggest D incumbent underperformance of Biden: MN-05

Most Democratic seat won by a Republican: CA-21

Most Republican seat won by a Democrat: ME-02

Biggest swing towards Republicans: IL-03. That's what happens when an incumbent with significant crossover appeal loses his primary and Republicans don't nominate a literal Neo-Nazi. Who'd a thunk it?

Biggest swing towards Democrats: FL-04. Maybe there's a glimmer of hope for Democrats in this state.

CA-21 and MN-07 each have two distinctions. The former had the smallest margin of defeat for an incumbent, but will be the most Democratic seat to have a Republican congressman. Although Collin Peterson's margin of defeat was the largest for a House incumbent, he still far outperformed Biden, losing by 13 as Trump carried the district by just under 30. It's well-known on here that Ilhan Omar had the worst performance relative to the presidential topline of any incumbent Democrat, but it looks like the biggest incumbent underperformance on the other side of the aisle was also in Minnesota, where Jim Hagedorn in MN-01 won by 3 as Trump carried his district by 10. And of course, IA-02 was the closest open seat and the closest seat overall.

Feel free to add or correct any!

[Tekken_Guy]

-Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez was the best performing female GOP candidate who did not win her race.
-GA-07 was the only pre-existing Republican-held house seat to go Democratic.
-Jared Golden is the only Democratic house freshman remaining from a district Trump carried by more than a microscopic margin.
-Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah all have returned to their pre-2018 delegation makeup. Iowa will have the same breakdown but with a different combination of districts.
-Peter Meijer is the only white male Republican to flip a house seat, and it wasn’t even a Democratic seat that changed hands.
-At least three former congressman will be returning to congress this year: Pete Sessions, Darrell Issa, and David Valadao.
-Carlos Gimenez is the only man to defeat an incumbent congresswoman this cycle.

[Frenchrepublican]

Disregarding NY-22. Margins are all based on percentages, unless stated otherwise.

Closest call for winning D incumbent: NJ-07

Closest call for winning R incumbent: CA-25

Largest margin of defeat for an incumbent: MN-07

Smallest margin of defeat for an incumbent: CA-21

Closest R open seat hold: TX-24

Closest D open seat hold: IL-03

Closest open seat: IA-02

Closest race in the country by percentage and vote total: IA-02

Biggest R overperformance of Trump: PA-01

Biggest D overperformance of Biden: MN-07

Biggest R incumbent underperformance of Trump: MN-01

Biggest D incumbent underperformance of Biden: MN-05

Most Democratic seat won by a Republican: CA-21

Most Republican seat won by a Democrat: ME-02

CA-21 and MN-07 each have two distinctions. The former had the smallest margin of defeat for an incumbent, but will be the most Democratic seat to have a Republican congressman. Although Collin Peterson's margin of defeat was the largest for a House incumbent, he still far outperformed Biden, losing by 13 as Trump carried the district by just under 30. It's well-known on here that Ilhan Omar had the worst performance relative to the presidential topline of any incumbent Democrat, but it looks like the biggest incumbent underperformance on the other side of the aisle was also in Minnesota, where Jim Hagedorn in MN-01 won by 3 as Trump carried his district by 10. And of course, IA-02 was the closest open seat and the closest seat overall.

Feel free to add or correct any!

Great post.

[kwabbit]

The dynamics of CA-21 are crazy. It voted for Clinton by 16 points but Valadao won by 13. I know he lost in 2018, but he came back again this year while overperforming Trump by a massive amount. Does the Hispanic surname carry that much weight? Or is always that GOP downballot?

[Roll Roons]

The dynamics of CA-21 are crazy. It voted for Clinton by 16 points but Valadao won by 13. I know he lost in 2018, but he came back again this year while overperforming Trump by a massive amount. Does the Hispanic surname carry that much weight? Or is always that GOP downballot?

Valadao is actually Portuguese, but I guess his name sounds vaguely Latino and I think there is a pretty sizable Portuguese community in the Central Valley. He also managed to build up a strong personal brand, being a dairy farmer in a district where that's a big industry. Cox is also a prime example of driftwood. He was (barely) swept in thanks to a wave, turned out to have a lot of issues, and got booted two years later in a less favorable environment for his party.

[VAR]

The dynamics of CA-21 are crazy. It voted for Clinton by 16 points but Valadao won by 13. I know he lost in 2018, but he came back again this year while overperforming Trump by a massive amount. Does the Hispanic surname carry that much weight? Or is always that GOP downballot?

Valadao has faced weak opponents since he was first elected. DCCC didn't really target him in 2016, so I guess that explains him overperforming Trump by 29 points.

Valadao is actually Portuguese, but his surname does indeed sound Hispanic. I think it does carry some weight, also it's worth mentioning that he's pro-DACA even though he's generally pretty conservative (voted with Trump 98% of the time! Lol). The district voted for Newsom by 4 points, so it's pretty R downballot, but not that much relative to CA as a whole.

This year, he overperformed Trump by roughly 12 points, and it appears he was aided by Cox's scandals and Trump's stronger-than-expected performance in the district. He should be fine in 2022, but he'll be in trouble in 2024 if the DCCC contests CA-21, and they surely will.

[kwabbit]

The dynamics of CA-21 are crazy. It voted for Clinton by 16 points but Valadao won by 13. I know he lost in 2018, but he came back again this year while overperforming Trump by a massive amount. Does the Hispanic surname carry that much weight? Or is always that GOP downballot?

Valadao is actually Portuguese, but I guess his name sounds vaguely Latino and I think there is a pretty sizable Portuguese community in the Central Valley. He also managed to build up a strong personal brand, being a dairy farmer in a district where that's a big industry. Cox is also a prime example of driftwood. He got swept in thanks to a wave, turned out to have a lot of issues, and got booted two years later in a less favorable environment for his party.

Oh yeah the ao combination is usually Portuguese. Interesting, my understanding was that Cox was a strong candidate for having won in 2018 but I guess it's more that it was just less of an overperformance from Valadao.

[Squidward500]

The dynamics of CA-21 are crazy. It voted for Clinton by 16 points but Valadao won by 13. I know he lost in 2018, but he came back again this year while overperforming Trump by a massive amount. Does the Hispanic surname carry that much weight? Or is always that GOP downballot?

Valadao is actually Portuguese, but I guess his name sounds vaguely Latino and I think there is a pretty sizable Portuguese community in the Central Valley. He also managed to build up a strong personal brand, being a dairy farmer in a district where that's a big industry. Cox is also a prime example of driftwood. He got swept in thanks to a wave, turned out to have a lot of issues, and got booted two years later in a less favorable environment for his party.

Oh yeah the ao combination is usually Portuguese. Interesting, my understanding was that Cox was a strong candidate for having won in 2018 but I guess it's more that it was just less of an overperformance from Valadao.

Portuguese is kinda in a weird place where nobody knows if they’re Latino or white. Or white Latino. I know the Republican Latino conference sits Portuguese reps and sens such as Nunes and Toomey (yeah he’s Portuguese). But classification is hard since there’s so many that could go either way such as Portuguese, Spanish, Brazilian, (I guess Belizean too but how many of them are there)

[Squidward500]

The dynamics of CA-21 are crazy. It voted for Clinton by 16 points but Valadao won by 13. I know he lost in 2018, but he came back again this year while overperforming Trump by a massive amount. Does the Hispanic surname carry that much weight? Or is always that GOP downballot?

Valadao is actually Portuguese, but I guess his name sounds vaguely Latino and I think there is a pretty sizable Portuguese community in the Central Valley. He also managed to build up a strong personal brand, being a dairy farmer in a district where that's a big industry. Cox is also a prime example of driftwood. He got swept in thanks to a wave, turned out to have a lot of issues, and got booted two years later in a less favorable environment for his party.

Oh yeah the ao combination is usually Portuguese. Interesting, my understanding was that Cox was a strong candidate for having won in 2018 but I guess it's more that it was just less of an overperformance from Valadao.

Portuguese is kinda in a weird place where nobody knows if they’re Latino or white. Or white Latino. I know the Republican Latino conference sits Portuguese reps and sens such as Nunes and Toomey (yeah he’s Portuguese). But classification is hard since there’s so many that could go either way such as Portuguese, Spanish, Brazilian, (I guess Belizean too but how many of them are there). But yes Valadao is a Portuguese name. He just excludes the ã.

But from my PVI calcs, the most Republican leaning seat held by a Dem is ME-2 (R+6). The most Dem leaning seat held by a Republican is CA-21 (D+5).

The biggest PVI shift was GA6 and 7, each moving 9 points left.
The biggest shift right so far was OH6 moving 8 points right.

The most D seat I’ve calculated is PA3 (D+41), the most R are TX13 and KY5 (R+33)

The biggest difference between neighboring districts is MD8 and PA13 (D+22 vs. R+25)

The most rural D district is ME2. The most urban R district is NY11

The most polarized 2 district state is Maine (D+8/R+6). The least is Hawaii (both D+14)

All but 1 defeated Democrat was a 2018 wave baby. The one? Collin Peterson (1990)

No incumbent R lost. (First time since 1994)

[Coolface Sock #42069]

It is truly amazing that not a single Republican incumbent lost, in a year where Joe Biden won comfortably. Just shows how badly Republicans lost in 2018.

The last time either party accomplished that feat was 2006, when Democrats did it as they beat the brakes off the GOP from sea to shining sea.