Final 2008 House Results- What Switched

The final result was short of a total disaster for the Republicans- Democrats gained "only" 21 seats, making the final total 257 to 178. However, the geographical breakdown concentrates Republicans in the South, with the Republicans having only a three-seat loss in the South and an 18-seat loss outside the South. A stunning 81 of the 178 Republican seats (46%) in the new House are in the South, which has exactly one-third (145) of the House seats.

The Republican membership is conspicuously white. Out of more than 70 nonwhite House members (I don't have an exact count) only five are Republicans. These are three Latinos, Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, all of Florida, one Native American, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, and one Asian, Anh Quang Cao of Louisiana, who was newly elected this year in New Orleans. The New Orleans seat is the only majority African-American district held by a Republican. Three Republicans, Nick Rahall (WV), Charles Boustany (LA), and Darrell Issa (CA) are Arab-Americans, but this is counted as white in the census. All of the minority Republican members are Christians, although some of the white Republican members are Jews and one is widely rumored to be a Scientologist.

The seats that switched, by region:

Northeast: Democratic pickup of seven seats, giving a crushing 75-17 Democratic advantage and a 22-0 shutout in New England. The 17 remaining Republicans are three in New York (out of 29), five in New Jersey (out of 13), seven in Pennsylvania (out of 19), and one each in Delaware and Maryland (out of 9). The pickups were the seat for southeastern Connecticut (CT-04), three New York seats, which were NY-13 (Staten Island), NY-25 (Syracuse), and NY-29 (Rochester area and southwestern part around Elmira and Jamestown), a seat in southern New Jersey (NJ-03), the northwest Pennsylvania seat (PA-03), and the seat for eastern Maryland and Annapolis (MD-01).

Midwest: Democratic pickup of five seats, giving a 55-45 Democratic advantage. Six seats went from Republican to Democratic, which were three Ohio seats, OH-01 (Cincinnati), OH-15 (Columbus), and OH-16 (Canton), two Michigan seats, MI-07 (Battle Creek and Jackson) and MI-09 (northwest Detroit area), and one Illinois seat, IL-11 (Joliet and rural areas west to near Quad Cities). A Kansas seat, KS-02 (eastern Kansas except Kansas City area and Wichita area), was the only seat outside the South to be gained by the Republicans.

West: Democratic pickup of six seats, giving a massive 63-35 Democratic advantage. The switching seats were one seat in Idaho, ID-01 (Boise and western half), one in Colorado, CO-04 (Fort Collins, Greeley, and rural eastern part of the state), two in New Mexico, NM-01 (Albuquerque) and NM-02 (southern), one in Arizona, AZ-01 (northern plateau including Flagstaff, Prescott, and Sedona), and one in Nevada, NV-03 (in the Las Vegas area).

South: Democratic pickup of three seats, giving the Republicans an 81-64 advantage. The Republican advantage, in percentage terms (56%) is smaller than the Democratic advantage in the Northeast (82%) or the West (64%) and is just slightly larger than the Democratic advantage in the Midwest (55%). Of the 14 southern states, the delegations from West Virginia (2-1), Virginia (6-5), North Carolina (8-5), Mississippi (3-1), and Arkansas (3-1) actually have Democratic majorities. In comparison, out of the other 36 states, only Missouri (5-4), Nebraska (3-0), Kansas (3-1), Montana (one), Wyoming (one), Utah (2-1), and Alaska (one) have Republican majorities with a 1-1 tie in Idaho. The seven seats going from Republican to Democratic were three in Virginia, VA-02 (Virginia Beach), VA-05 (western area around Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Danville), and VA-11 (Washington DC suburban), one in North Carolina, NC-08 (part of Charlotte with Fayetteville), two in Florida, FL-08 and FL-24 (both in Orlando and the Space Coast), and one in Alabama, AL-02 (Montgomery). The four switching the other way were one in Florida, FL-16 (part of both coasts in southern Florida with much of the Everglades), two in Louisiana, LA-02 (New Orleans) and LA-06 (Baton Rouge), and one in Texas, TX-22 (southern Houston around the Johnson Space Center and west suburbs).