Congressional Freshman Update

The Congressional class of 2006 has had a year's worth of voting, and here are the current patterns:

Commentary below the fold.

• Roughly half the freshman are Blue Dogs, ranging from the DINO-except-on-minimum-wage Heath Shuler to Clinton protege Kirsten Gillibrand. Most of these congressmen, except maybe Giffords, Patrick Murphy, and Gillibrand, represent very conservative districts; three from Indiana, distrits held by Delay, Ney, and Foley, and conservative parts of Pennsylvania.
  
• One quarter are somewhat more progressive, but still quite centrist, from Bruce Braley to Nancy Boyda. They tend to come from parts of the country that are less conservative but have either split tickets or elected Republicans in recent history; rural Minnesota, suburban Denver, eastern Iowa, whatever part of Florida Ron Klein represents, etc
• A little less than one quarter have voted like garden-variety Democrats, from Carol Shea-Porter to Joe Sestak. All of them represent districts in Northeast.
• The remaining three are liberal bomb-throwers. Two of the three (Dave Loebsack and John Yarmuth) represent districts where, based various partisan indices, their seats are safe.
   

Comments

[ikl]

More great data!

Though only a couple of surprises here - I didn't think that Yarmuth would be so far left or that Mitchell would be so far right. In general, we have to live with there being centrist Dems in purple to reddish districts if we want a majority.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Quite true. By my count, Dems should feel pretty good; Yarmuth, Shea-Porter, Boyda, and Hall are to the left of their districts, while Giffords, Gillibrand, and Murphy are to the right. Maybe Mitchell too.

[Delicious Pundit]

Small note: many of my relatives live in Gillibrand's district. It's pretty conservative -- not Huckabee country, necessarily, but it had been Republican for 14 years.

[Jake Bryan]

Smaller note after Delicious Pundit: Gillibrand represents what is now NY's 20th District, which was recently (2003?) gerrymandered and renumbered into a supposedly safe Republican district. It almost surrounds the Democratic cities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy, but includes mostly rural, agricultural, traditional Republican territory. It was previously represented by the infamous John Sweeney and before him by Gerry Solomon. Gillibrand's victory was regarded as a major upset, and there are already multiple Republican opponents lining up against her for this fall.

[A Proud OH-13-er]

Where's Betty Sutton?