1994 house elections

[freepcrusher]

lets profile some of the seats democrats lost in 1994 and analyze the district and its demographics and the freshman republicans and what happened to them

AZ 1 - this district i believe had Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek, and some other areas. Coppersmith's win two years earlier was a fluke win. Coppersmith was a good candidate, but he vacated his seat to run for senate. Coppersmith unseated Rhodes Jr two years earlier. What's interesting is that the district was more republican than it was from 1982-1990 because all the Mexican precincts in Phoenix were removed from the district. Salmon lasted until 2000, when he retired to run for governor. I believe Jeff Flake succeeded him. The district is now District 6 and is basically the same only smaller in size.

AZ 6 - not sure what the district was like exactly but i believe it contained the northeast suburbs of Phoenix and some parts of rural Arizona. It was a fairly republican district, so English's defeat wasn't that big of a shock, especially since she had been in office for only one term. Hayworth was in office for a good 12 years. In 2002, they added heavily democratic Tempe to his district which made it somewhat competitive. His arrogance caught up with him and he narrowly lost re-election in 2006.

CA 1 - basically the coastal areas north of Marin County. Not much different from how it is now. I'm not sure if it was strongly dem back then, but it gave Obama 65% in 08, and has a lot of hippie types living there. Riggs probably had an advantage because he had already represented the area of before and this was a rematch. Riggs gave up his seat in 98 to run against Boxer and has been replaced by Mike Thompson.


CA 19 - this district was basically a dixiecrat district as many people were descendants from West Texas and Oklahoma. Like many other dixiecrat districts in 1994, it finally flipped downballot. Despite the incredible bluing of California since then, Radanovich was able to hold on to its seat. He retired in 2010, and was replaced by Jeff Denham.

CA 49 - another surprising win. Basically took in all the limousine liberal precincts in San Diego and this district went for Gore in 2000, which was when Bilbray was unseated by Susan Davis. In 02, the district took in a lot of areas of CD 50 and was renamed district 53. The northern part of the district was added to District 51, and was renamed District 50. After Duke Cunningham got sent in the slammer, Bilbray made a comeback in that district.

That's all I got for now, I'll post some more tomorrow.

[freepcrusher]

FL 1 - the Thurmondcrat part of Florida. Elected Earl Hutto who was a dixiecrat. Once he retired, they felt no need to elect any more democrats as the district was voting republican in all other races. This seat went to morning joe, and has been held by Jeff Miller since Scarborough resigned in 2001.

FL 15 - a very tourist-y part of Florida. It takes in a lot of coastal areas east of Orlando. Dave Weldon took in an open seat. He managed to survive 2006 before retiring in 2008

Georgia - the democrats really f---ed up bigtime here by packing Lewis and McKinney into two 75% dem districts. Not sure what exactly happened though except that they changed the lines again for 1996

Idaho 1 - another district the democrats probably had no business holding. A district that was otherwise republican and was held by Larry Craig in the 80s. The district was taken over by a dem when Craig vacated his seat for the 90 senate election. Surprisingly this seat was held by Walt Minnick for two years before the seat went republican once again in 2010

[freepcrusher]

Illinois 5 - fluke win basically against 36 year incumbent who took seat for granted. A very urban district near Chicago that went for Gore in 2000. Blago picked this seat up in 96.

Illinois 11 - some rural and exurban areas south of Chicago. Basically a swing seat. The guy who picked up the seat held on to it until he retired 2008. Debbie Halverson however was unseated in 2010.

Indiana 2 - basically east central Indiana. The guy who was unseated was first elected after watergate. I don't know what the district looked like then, but I know Indiana radically altered the districts in 1981. I believe the guy who took over lasted until 01 when he retired and was replaced by Mike Pence.

Indiana 4 - same boat as ID 1.

[freepcrusher]

Iowa 4 - a redistricting nightmare. They took Newton and Ames out of IA 4 and added freeperville areas in SW Iowa to it. Neal Smith was actually ahead in the polls the entire way but lost unexpectedly. Ganske was a good guy and a moderate republican, which was why he was able to hold onto the seat. In 2001, they pretty much carved took the SW Iowa part of it and added it to District 5 and added Central and Eastern Iowa to the district. Ganske I believe vacated his seat to run for Senate. With Leonard Boswell being redistricted to the 5th district, he carpetbagged to the DM area district and won. Had Ganske stayed in congress, he most likely would have been re-elected in 2002 and 2004 but would have been unseated by someone like Jack Hatch or Matt McCoy in 2006.

Kansas 2 - open seat after the incumbent ran for governor.

Kansas 4 - this race was pretty much a microcosm for the shifting attitudes of the country. Even though the district voted republican in presidential elections, it still had a democratic congressman. Dan Glickman was ahead by 30 points 2 months before the election. Interestingly enough, the wealthy republican precincts in Wichita all backed Glickman strongly because they saw his challenger for what he was - a sexist, chauvinist, homophobe. But the blue collar areas of Wichita actually ate that sh-t up and became convinced that Glickman was going to take away their guns. Tiahrt actually narrowly won in 1996 and had they ran Glickman against him, he probably would have gotten the seat back. Unfortunately, he got 60 percent in every election since, even in 2006, and the district is still republican. One of the problems was all the fetus worshipping people started moving into Wichita to harass Tiller.

[freepcrusher]

btw, AZ 1 was different than I thought it was. It was nowhere near as republican a district I thought it to be. In 2000, Bush only got 51 percent there. I believe it contained a lot of dem areas in Tempe. I believe in 2002, they took the most dem areas from AZ 1 and glued it to the Maricopa portion of AZ 6 and renamed it AZ 5.