Tennessee Democratic Incumbents Fate Shaped By Ideology
The leadership of the Republican Party is depicting the congressional elections of 2010 as an endorsement of their ideology. The pattern of electoral victories for seats in the House of Representatives actually shows something different, however. The statistics show that the more liberal a Democratic incumbent was over the last two years, the more likely that Democrat was to be re-elected to the House.
The fates of the three Democratic incumbents running for re-election to the House in 2010 illustrates the national trend.
There were three Democrats running for re-election to the House from Tennessee this year. As measured by our House legislative scorecard of their activities over the last two years, Lincoln Davis was shown to be a right wing regressive, Jim Cooper was shown to be a centrist, and Steve Cohen was shown to be a strong liberal. Their ideological scores are shown on the graph here as the red line.
The blue bars on this graph show another statistic: Margin of victory (or defeat). Lincoln Davis, the least liberal, lost his seat. Centrist Jim Cooper won re-election, but not with a high margin. Steve Cohen the liberal, had a very strong electoral victory.
This trend ought to provide the framework for a strong congressional comeback in 2012: You can’t win a lasting majority for the Democratic Party by electing Democrats who support Republican politics.
