ESP champs 2008-2010

Just poking around a bit further in the Electoral Separation of Purpose data, as pictured and explained previously.

I wondered who the “ESP Champs” were of these cycles.

For 2008, I hereby crown Gene Taylor of Mississippi, who won 74.5% in his district on the same day that Obama managed 31.7%. Now that’s separation of purpose!

He still managed 47% even in 2010. Not bad, but not good enough.

In fact, that 2010 result makes Taylor one of only four Democrats to have won, at the midterm, more than 45% of the vote in a district in which Obama had won under 35%. But to be crowned champion for 2010, you should actually have won your race. So the 2010 title belongs to…

Dan Boren of Oklahoma, who won 56.5% in a district in which Obama had won 34.5%. This result still represented a massive adverse swing against Boren, who had 70.5% in 2008. But he held on.

Boren and Taylor, by the way, are both Blue Dogs.

With ESP numbers like these, we can see why some “blue” congressmen in deeply “red” districts were less than keen these past two years in coming to the support of Obama’s policy priorities. (This was a topic that generated considerable discussion in another thread earlier this month.)