Do you see a geographical trend emerging? Is there any basis to think that the South will grow more Republican, while the rest of the country more Democratic?

It's possible to not only add to the Democratic majority in the House, but to have for the first time in a long time, a progressive majority. But geography will to a large extent determine the ideological balance of the House Democratic Caucus.

What can one say about this development?

Bye?

Point of interest, does anyone know what these particular congressmen will do for a living next year?

While I have moved from Edwards to Clinton, I remain worried about their relative impact on down ticket races, particularly whether or not Clinton energizes otherwise dispirited segments of GOPer coalition.

When I have raised this issue in the past, and when I have read similar comments from others, the retort from Clinton supporters has been that coat tails no longer matter.

That is often true.  The most recent analysis I could locate indicates the coat tail effect, as these folks assert, is small except in open races, where the effect is statistically significant in presidential races since 1976.  This wave of retirements raises exactly this scenario.  The record number of GOPer retirements creates an opportunity to cement a governing majority, an opportunity that comes along only so often, and in which the top of the ticket indeed matters a great deal further down.

A 2005 study authored by a political scientist at U. Buffalo and a professor at Yale Law School found that:

"the report about the demise of the coattail effect has been greatly exaggerated. Presidential coattails continue to exert a significant influence on the distribution of the House vote and, especially in open seats, even on the outcome of House elections."

Franco Mattei & Joshua Glasgow "Presidential coattails, incumbency advantage, and open seats: A district-level analysis of the 1976-2000 U.S. House elections", Electoral Studies 24(4), December 2005: 619-641.

Following are some of the more pertinent passages from their study, introduced by my takeaway comments:

OUTCOMES IN OPEN RACES ARE MORE STRONGLY CORRELATED WITH PRESIDENTIAL VOTING THAN WITH INCUMBENTS

"The simple, bi-variate correlation between the Republican percentage of the two-party House vote in presidential election years and the Republican percentage of the two-party House vote in the immediately preceding election (midterm or special) yields coefficients of 0.91 in incumbent-held districts, but of only 0.64 in open districts. In contrast, correlations between the Republican percentage of the two-party, district-level presidential vote and the Republican percentage of the two-party House vote in presidential election years are 0.66 in incumbent-held districts and 0.79 in open districts. Thus, the distribution of the House vote in open races is more closely aligned with the concurrent presidential vote whereas the distribution of the House vote received by incumbents is more tightly related with the vote they garnered two years earlier or in their most recent election."

COAT-TAIL EFFECTS REMAIN A "POWERFUL INFLUENCE"

This study has attempted to portray a comprehensive picture of the influence of presidential coattails in recent U.S. House elections. Attention has been devoted to the district-level relationship between presidential and House vote, to both the strength and the effectiveness of coattails, and to how they are affected by the nature of congressional races -- whether or not there is an incumbent defending his (her) seat. The analysis has identified the number and types of districts swung by the coattail and examined (if briefly) the outcome of the election in such set of districts at the following midterm. Several conclusions are warranted by this investigation.

Presidential coattails continue to provide a powerful source of influence in elections to the House of Representatives; the strength of coattails has not undergone any substantive change in the years this study examines. While the coattail effect remains important, the incumbency advantage is also quite conspicuous, and mutes the impact of the presidential election outcomes on the vote in House contests. Absent the insulating buffer generated by the incumbency advantage (however measured), open seat races provide the setting in which both the strength and the effectiveness of coattails reach their highest levels. According to the year-by-year estimates presented in the previous section, the influence of the presidential vote on the House vote in open districts is typically at least twice as high as in incumbent-held districts. Overall, the outcome of 6.5% of all contested elections was determined by presidential coattails; as shown in Table 6, the proportion of coattail swing districts was nearly ten times more frequent in races for open seats than in challenges to incumbents. >

Some winning candidates or popular presidents have the ability to swing nearly 10% of contested seats in the House, as Reagan did in 1980 and 1984. In the current conditions of virtual parity between the two major parties, a change of that magnitude would have deep implications for the control of the House. Indeed, in 2000, despite the almost perfect tie in the presidential election, George W. Bush's coattails netted four seats (seven minus three attributed to Gore's coattail) to the Republican party, about one third of the majority retained by the party in the House. Popular presidential candidates may be able to further increase their influence, especially by focusing their campaign activities on open-seat districts which, as this study has demonstrated, are far more amenable to coattail influence than incumbent-held seats. If and to the extent that presidents are perceived to have an impact on the results of House races, their leverage on Congress and in particular the members elected by the coattail-swing districts would be enhanced.

Just something to think about.