If the Democrats lost a house or senate seat in your area, please tell us the story.

[mahina]

I think we would be in a much different situation right now if we kept our majority in the House.

What caused the loss in your community?

In my own, we turned a fluke short term R house seat blue, and went from light blue to dark blue all over the state. We now have one lone republican in the Senate and a tiny number in the House. The Republicans put up more candidates this year than ever before and they got their butts kicked.

Our deep blue Governor, Neil Abercrombie, won with a 17 point lead when the race was a statistical dead heat.

Why? Three main reasons I can point two, and one minor reason.

1. The 08 Presidential election created a huge number of new registered Democrats, and lots of those new voters voted again.

2. We had a hell of a ground game and a much better candidate for Governor.

3. The Republicans put all their eggs in the gay marriage fearmongering hubub. For a long time it really did look like they might prevail...but they didn't!

Also, their candidate for the house seat was a douchebag.

I don't mean to gloat. I am sure lots of us worked hard in those states that lost Democratic representation. I would really like to hear what happened and learn from it as I am able.

Next time...a hui hou.

[AndrewP]

1. I work in North Dakota, and they lost their one House seat and a Senate seat

Byron Dorgan was tired and decided to retire. The Democrats raised $50.00 for his replacement in the party and got trounced by the Republican Gov. John Hoeven. The Dems didn't even try to hold on.

The House lost Earl Pomeroy because the local teabaggers got fired up over his support of that socialist healthcare plan run by that Kenyan, according to the geniuses around here that dominate talk radio. Plus Rick Berg had a TON of money come in.

The population here is one of those that depends on the Government for helping fund farming programs, but at the same time hate Government and want all women to have children no matter what. So they are easily led by the nose to vote right wing.

[dsc]

2. On the federal level we lost one house seat in our area

The Congressman was the guy who went off on the GOP operatives who were taping him. The GOP Senator won an easy reelection since the national party left our candidate high and dry. We lost both the state house and the state senate and quite badly it must be said. Several suburban Raleigh seats changed party as did rural seats in both the east and the western sides of the state. It wasn't pretty we were outspent and out classed.

[quaker bill]

3. I live in Grayson's former house district.

Youth turn out was poor and we lost the center.

[2Design]

10. I voted grayson - he lost BUT is still public - Florida is 'toast'

[JamesA1102]

4. My congressman voted with the GOP on most key issues

He even called for an extention of the Bush tax cuts for the rich months ago.

I didn't vote for him this year and most Dems in the area didn't either.

[MilesColtrane]

5. Not in my immediate area, but nearby:

Chet Edwards served as a Democrat in the House for over twenty years.

He was specifically targeted, along with nine other Congressmen, after Republicans won control of the Texas state legislature in 2002.

Wiki has a short entry on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Texas_redistricting

[old mark]

6. Here in PA, we lost a senate seat that had just become Dem when Specter

changed parties, then lost the primary to Joe Sestak, who lost the election to Pat Toomey, so we are back to 1 Democratic and 1 GOP senator...BUT - the new republican senator is much more RW/extremeist and we also lost the Governorship as well as control of both houses of the state legislature. Many people here in PA hate Obama for his "anti-gun and anti-religious" comments back in 2008, and most people could not stand the previous Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, so voted for the GOP.
Also, PA seems to have a tradition of changing parties every election or 2...But I don't see much support for Democrats here at all.

Many Democratic voters just did not bother to show up.

mark

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. Lost Evan Bayh's seat here in Indiana

after he bailed on us without giving us enough time to have a primary to replace him. Indiana was NOT in favorable mood towards Democrats this year. We lost the Indiana House and only have two Democratic House members left.

[NuclearDem]

8. Can't say I'm sad to see Bayh go

I'll miss having a Dem in the Senate seat, but I couldn't care less for Bayh going away.

That said...Ellsworth '16!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. I wasn't sad to see Bayh go

I would've held my nose and voted for him if he ran for re-election b/c I didn't want another seat to go Republican but I'm not really going to miss him. He treated President Obama badly and was one of the "thorns" in his side during this Congress and he didn't allow for a proper primary to replace him, which lessened our chances IMHO of retaining his seat. His successor, who is actually a former US Senator from Indiana (Coats) actually seems somewhat reasonable and may not end up being that bad. By today's Republican standards he, like Lugar, actually seems somewhat moderate and more in the "traditional" Republican mold. He's already made some public comments on NPR lamenting the Republicans' excessive/inappropriate use of the filibuster during this soon-to-be-past Congress and thinks that everything should be allowed to be debated, so, assuming that he retains a principled view like that when he actually takes office..........:shrug: Come 2016 I hope the Democrats have some more momentum and are able to reclaim the seat. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what happens with Lugar's race in 2012 as he may be facing a "teabagger" in the primary.

[Bluerthanblue]

9. yeah- Paul Hodes chose not to run in order to run for Judd Gregg's

Senate seat. :( He lost to Kelly Ayotte- who was endorsed by Sarah Palin and who had way too much republican support. She's going to be a nightmare. Paul was a decent Rep, but he chose to play the 'middle of the road' candidate in his ads- and didn't seem to connect with people very much.

Hodes' seat, SHOULD have been filled by Anne McLane Kuster- who is great and very popular, she was challenged by Charlie Bass, who had lost his seat to Hodes in 06- it was a very close race. Bass is a Bush man- he'd been in the house for 6 terms before Hodes beat him,

Our Governor was the only Dem win. He won an unprecedented 4th term.

We were deluged by ad's from special interest groups form out of state. Almost all of them were tea-party/conservative/right-wing ones.

it was a terrible day for New Hampshire.

[tabbycat31]

11. Not my own district but one just south of me (NJ-3--John Adler)

A few reasons.... I was actually just recently discussing this with my (more than?) friend, who worked on the race a lot (I did not get anything done locally this year as I worked on a race in KY). There was no statewide race this year on the top of the ticket in NJ but Chris Christie changed everything in central and south Jersey politically.

1) The district is a Republican district and the Democrats took it on Obama's coattails in 2008. It had previously been Republican and Cook Political report rates it as R+1
2) John Adler did have a good record on some issues but ultimately he was a blue dog who voted against healthcare reform. Pissed off the Democratic base which was not as motivated to volunteer as in the past.
3) The Republicans ran a football player who recently played for a "local" team (Philadelphia Eagles) who already had the name recognition (and deep pockets).
4) John Adler's campaign was directly involved in getting a teabagger on the ticket (as a 3rd party) and it backfired (the press had word of this and broke the story before the election).
5) The GOP has a better messaging game than we do. Period.

[GoCubsGo]

12. My state lost one of its 2 Dem Congressmen

John Spratt lost to someone even more conservative than he is. We also lost a wingnut Congressman, Bob Ingliss, who lost his primary to a teabagger who ultimatey won the election.

[Dark]

13. Back home in Cincinnati (right next to boehner's district) my former rep lost cause of HCR

He voted for it after joining that idiot stupak and saying it funds abortion. As soon as he did it, he screwed himself over, cause that district will NEVER vote for a prochoice guy. He voted for the bill right after saying it supported abortion, which it didn't.

[sweetapogee]

15. At the

state level, in PA another poster (old mark) has given the grim facts. In my congressional district, PA-11, Paul E. Kanjorski-D who has held that seat for 24 years and was a solid liberal, lost to Lou Barletta-R on this third try for the seat. Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton made national news a few years ago when he pushed a law in Hazleton that required renters and employees to prove legal citizenship, the first salvo in the immigration wars. Needless to say, I'm going to be represented by a bagger.

While the state of PA is a swing state, the 11th is a solid Red. From our district the pukes did well in the state house race as the retiring Keith McCall-D Carbon (the outgoing house speaker) was replaced by a puke.

For this and other reasons (some of them unique to the candidate), I say with a certain amount of confidence that in 2012, the US Senate Seat currently held by Bob Casey Jr.-D is up for grabs. If the employment in situation in PA doesn't start improving soon, Casey may very well strike out his next time up at bat. But in a way, it's almost as if the guy really doesn't exist around here.