Republican Scott Brown won 52%-47% in Massachusetts, which voted 62%-36% for Barack Obama in 2008. How did he do in each of Massachusetts's 10 congressional districts, all of which are represented by Democrats who have been reelected without much opposition this decade? Blogger Fred Bauer has attempted to calculate the results, omitting results in cities or towns which are split between congressional districts. Bauer shows Coakley winning 80%-20% in Michael Capuano's 8th district (which voted 84% for Obama), 54%-46% in Ed Markey's 7th district (65% Obama) and 51%-49% in John Olver's western Mass 1st district (64% Obama). He shows Coakley narrowly trailing in Barney Frank's 4th district (63% Obama), where I think the Fall River precincts he didn't count would have put Coakley narrowly ahead, and in Stephen Lynch's 9th district (60% Obama) he shows her well behind but doesn't include the Boston wards and precincts which may have put her ahead, although I rather doubt it.
Anyway, there's a pattern here: Coakley carries districts where Obama got 65% or more of the vote and runs essentially even in the district where he got 64%, and Scott Brown runs ahead in districts where Obama got less than 64% of the vote.
Let's extrapolate those numbers to the nation as a whole and assume that a district that voted 64% or more for Obama is safe for Democrats even under the most dire of circumstances. How many such districts are there? Answer, according to this source: 103. The other 332 districts voted 63% or less for Obama. Interestingly, there are more 64%+ Obama districts in the West (36) than in the East (27) and more in the South (21) than in the Midwest (19).
All but two of the 103 Obama 64%+ districts are represented by Democrats. The two exceptions are Louisiana 2, where Republican An Joseph Cao beat Democrat William Cold Cash' Jefferson in a December 2008 runoff, and Florida 19, whose incumbent Robert Wexler resigned and a special election will be held in April. And, yes, it will be amazing if this heavily Jewish district in Palm Beach and Broward Counties elects a Republican; heavily Jewish Brookline and Newton voted heavily against Scott Brown in Massachusetts.
So that means that 101 of the 256 House Democrats represent 64%+ Obama districts and that 155 House Democrats represent districts which might, according to the Massachusetts metric, be vulnerable in some circumstances to Republican capture. No wonder so many House Democrats refused to vote for the Senate health care billenough to prompt Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say publicly that unease would be a gentle word' to describe their attitude toward doing that.
Who represents the 103 Obama 64%+ districts? By my count, 36 are represented by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11 by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; three (CA 5, HI 2, LA 3) are represented by members of Asian descent) and 53 by members who are white. I have previously characterized 36 of these last 56 districts as gentry liberal' districts and 12 as working class/ethnic' districts.
Where are these 64%+ Obama districts? Here's a list by metro area:
EAST
New York (NY 6, NY 7, NY 8, NY 10, NY 11, NY 12, NY 14, NY 15, NY 16, NY 17, NJ 10, NJ 13)
Philadelphia (PA 1, PA 2, NJ 1)
Washington (MD 4, MD 5, MD 8, VA 8 [technically I count the last in the South)
Boston (MA 7, MA 8)
Baltimore (MD 7)
Pittsburgh (PA 14)
Buffalo (NY 28)
Hartford (CT 1)
Providence (RI 1)
Rural New England (MA 1, VT 1)
MIDWEST
Chicago (IL 1, IL 2, IL 3, IL 4, IL 5, IL 7, IL 9)
Detroit (MI 12, MI 13, MI 14, MI 15)
Cleveland (OH 11)
St. Louis (MO 1)
Minneapolis (MN 4, MN 5)
Milwaukee (WI 4)
Indianapolis (IN 7)
Flint (MI 5)
Madison (WI 2)
WEST
Los Angeles (CA 27, CA 28, CA 29, CA 30, CA 31, CA 32, CA 33, CA 34, CA 35, CA 36, CA 37, CA 38, CA 39, CA 43)
San Francisco (CA 6, CA 7, CA 8, CA 9, CA 10, CA 12, CA 13, CA 14, CA 15, CA 16)
California North and Central Coast (CA 1, CA 17, CA 23)
San Diego (CA 53)
Sacramento (CA 5)
Seattle (WA 7)
Portland (OR 3)
Denver (CO 1)
Phoenix (AZ 4)
Las Vegas (NV 1)
Honolulu (HI 1, HI 2)
SOUTH
Atlanta (GA 4, GA 5, GA 13)
Miami (FL 17, FL 19, FL 23)
Houston (TX 9, TX 18)
Dallas (TX 30)
San Antonio (TX 20)
El Paso (TX 16)
Tampa (FL 11)
Jacksonville (FL 3)
Birmingham (AL 7)
New Orleans (LA 2)
Jackson (MS 2)
Charlotte (NC 12)
Columbia (SC 6)
Memphis (TN 9)
Richmond (VA 3)
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