This graph shows the dropoff from 2008 votes, by congressional district, for John McCain and Barack Obama and the 2010 votes for Republican and Democratic congressional candidates, respectively. For instance, John McCain received 164,874 votes in the 5th CD in 2008 and Robert Hurt received 119,243
votes in 2010, which means there was a 28% dropoff. For comparison, also in the 5th CD, Barack Obama received 157,362 votes in 2008, while Tom Perriello received 110,568 votes in 2010, for a 30% dropoff. Now, let’s rank the candidates from lowest to highest dropoff, as a way to measure how effectively they got out their votes yesterday compared to the vote for president in 2008. Also, keep in mind that Republicans were more energized this year than in 2008, but obviously that’s not the only factor at work here, given Rick Boucher’s and Tom Perriello’s excellent GOTV numbers.
1. Rick Boucher: -20%
2. Frank Wolf: -27%
3. Robert Hurt: -28%
4. Randy Forbes: -29%
4. Keith Fimian: -29%
6. Tom Perriello: -30%
6. Rob Wittman: -30%
8. Bob Goodlatte: -31%
9. Eric Cantor: -33%
10. Scott Rigell: -36%
11. Chuck Smith: -38%
12. Morgan Griffith: -40%
13. Gerry Connolly: -47%
14. Bobby Scott: -50%
14. Jim Moran: -50%
16. Glenn Nye: -51%
17. Rick Waugh: -55%
18. Wynne LeGrow: -59%
18. Krystal Ball: -59%
20. Jeff Barnett: -65%
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