Friday, August 08, 2008

Congressmen losing primaries in 2008

I noticed the John Edwards story today and visited a site I don't frequent - DKos.

As I scanned down the homepage, I found a roundup on recent primaries nationwide.

Surprising to me was this tidbit:

...a northeastern Tennessee contest that had flew below the radar ended up headlining the day's electoral news, as freshman Rep. David Davis unexpectedly lost narrowly in the GOP primary to Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe in the 1st district. Davis is the fourth House incumbent to lose in a primary this year, following Utah Rep. Chris Cannon (R) and Maryland Reps. Wayne Gilchrest and Al Wynn (D).

Of the 435 House seats and 33 (or so) Senate seats that are up for election... how many have incumbents that are being primaried? And of those, how many challengers have won? I know CT has no incumbents being primaried. And nationwide, I know of only one other incumbent who was primaried... but Ron Paul kept the GOP nomination with more than 70% of the vote.

Does this portend either another anti-Republican tidal wave in Washington? Or perhaps an anti-incumbent backlash? I think an anti-incumbent sentiment is well-deserved at this point.

Tim White

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was a rematch from '06. The incumbent had done little in his first term and but still may not have taken the opponent very seriously

Anonymous said...

While there are no incumbent federal candidates from Connecticut facing primaries, there are several state candidates (not sure how many are incumbents). Below is a press release from the Secretary of State's office. They credit new public financing as a possible cause.

STATE ELECTIONS ENFORCEMENT COMMISSION SEES INCREASE
IN THE NUMBER OF PRIMARIES SINCE 2006 AND AWARDS FINAL PRIMARY ELECTION GRANTS
HARTFORD, CT, July 24, 2008 – Today’s State Election Enforcement Commission meeting was the last in which candidates participating in the August 12th primary could receive grants from the Citizen’s Election Program. There are twenty primaries for state legislative races --- four Senate and sixteen for House of Representatives. This is almost a two-fold increase in the number of primaries from 2006.
Of the forty-two candidates participating in the August 12th primary, thirty-seven have chosen to participate in the Citizens’ Election Program. Thirty-four have applied for and received primary election grants.

Anonymous said...

interesting. Thanks Quod.

Anonymous said...

the dkos is great. I read it almost daily.