Talk:2006 United States House of Representatives elections

Maps

Could someone make my Results Map appear in the page like someone did with my Poll Map? Thank you. JoshNarins 00:22, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Instead of fixing it, someone removed the old map (which was appearing in the page) and somehow the result was that the new map linked to nowhere. Could someone please help, and not mess around this time? Thanks JoshNarins 02:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Congressional change map needs editing. New Hampshire should be filled in light blue for 2 Democratic pickups.

Democrats need 16 seats, or 15?

The intro states:

'Republicans currently hold a 28 seat advantage, but Democrats would need to pick up 16 seats to take control of the House.'

If the Republicans currently lead by 28 seats, then a 15 seat pickup ought to be enough for a Democratic takeover. If the discrepancy is due to the 1 independent, this ought to be pointed out. Grover cleveland 20:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Since I'm the one that made the change to 16 from 15, here's my thinking process. There are 435 seats in the House. That means in order for the Dems to control the house, they have to have at least 218 seats. Since the Dems + the Ind that caucauses with them currently have 202 seats, they have to gain another 16 to control the house. As for the discrepancy. The counts for seats controlled by the parties does not include the open seats, so the 2 formerly controlled by republicans and 1 formerly controlled by the Dem aren't included in count leaving 230 seats for the Republicans and the aformentioned 202. Hopefully that makes sense.--Bobblehead 20:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

An open seat retained by the party is not considered a pick-up. The number should be 15. Nshumeyko 22:14, 14 October 2006

That is an excellent point and one that I was trying to reconcile when I made the change to 16. Even though there are 3 open seats right now, those empty seats are still considered to be controlled by the party of the person that retired. So the question is, should we also update the number of Democratic and Republican controlled seats to reflect the inclusion of the open seats? Basically have the sentence say the Republicans control 232 seats, the Dems 202 seats, and 1 independent controlled seat? --Bobblehead 15:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Mark Foley

Should there be a section before the list of races about the impact of the Mark Foley scandal? Or would something like that come AFTER the election, as a historical paragraph of what happened to influence the race? SargeAbernathy 21:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking after the election, or at least until another round of polling comes out for the affected candidates. At this point it's purely speculation what impact Foley's scandal will have (well, except for FL-16). As an example, Dennis Hastert's opponent barely registered as a blip on his radar prior to the scandal, we won't know until at least some polling comes out for IL-14 if his involvement in the scandal will cause this to change. --Bobblehead 21:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah we are going to need to have sources to cite anyway. So waiting is probably a good idea. Rtrev 21:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget IL-19 as the incumbent heads the House Page Board and did not inform fellow board members about allegations against Foley. Steelbeard1 01:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Spinoff article for sections with predictions (done via transcluding)

Given the length of the two sections that discuss predictions for the House ("Non-partisan election analyses" and "Market-based indicators"), would it make sense to split these off into a new article - something like "United State House elections - predictions for 2006"?

If nothing else, it would be good to preserve the final predictions, yet once the election is over, it doesn't seen to me to make that much sense to keep them in THIS article. And certainly (source) commentary on the accuracy of final predictions would be very interesting (and worth preserving), yet would be totally wrong for this article, in my opinion.

And then what would be left in this article would be a few paragraphs summarizing the predictions at a high level, with a link to the main article about the predictions.John Broughton | Talk 16:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

An excellent idea. But on the name, maybe "Pre-election predictions, United State House elections, 2006" or "United State House elections, 2006 - Pre-election predictions" would be better. Those names seem to tie the sub-article closer to the 2006 election rather than the appearance of "These are some predictions from 2006 that are related to House elections". --Bobblehead 16:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I propose "United State House elections, 2006 - predictions. The next step, I think, would be for me to create the article but put into it a summary. Then people can see what will happen when the contents of the article (the summary) are swapped for what is now in this article (all the details). John Broughton | Talk 11:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

As the prediction/polling section grows, it really should be spun off... jesup 15:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've written the summary that I propose replace the details now in this article. The summary is at United State House elections, 2006 - predictions. The details in this article would then be moved to that article - United State House elections, 2006 - predictions. (I hope that isn't too confusing - basically, I don't want to touch this article until people have a chance to look at what is proposed to be changed). Comments? John Broughton | Talk 16:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

That brings up a couple of things:

• Should the summary be a list of predictors, or a copy of the table?
  
• Should the summary be a page of it's own that's transcluded into both the detail page and the main election page? (You appear not to be able to transclude a section from a page, only an entire page - bummer!)
  
• If it's not transcluded, either the summary need to lose the details on current status, or most people editing the details will need to edit the main page as well. -- jesup17:40, 17 October 2006

The table doesn't cover market-based predictions, but I agree that it might be the easiest way to summarize the rest of the predictions (the majority). It certainly is easier to just copy the table than to keep updating the summary information as details change. John Broughton | Talk 13:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Would wrapping everything but the table in <noinclude></noinclude> work? Transcluding is basically a template in the main space and that's how descriptions from templates are left off when they are added to pages. --Bobblehead 15:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds interesting; worth a sandbox try I think. jesup 15:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay.. Went with sandbox in main article space, but adding noinclude works with the transclusion from main space. The only "issue" with transclusion is if <ref> links are used in the table, then they won't work properly. WP isn't able to pull the references information from the transcluded article and include it in the displayed article. --Bobblehead 16:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Worked like a charm. You can even exclude several sections (I tested noincludes on top and bottom text simultaneously). A reference page is Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefitsJohn Broughton | Talk 16:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

All in all, I'd say Be bold and go with moving the details off this page onto the spinoff article and leaving a transclude behind on this article. --Bobblehead 16:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

As a watcher but not often contributor I thought I would throw in my two cents. Go for it (see WP:Be bold). On a related note watching this article develop has been quite nice. A lot more civil and productive than other pages I have on my watchlist. Rtrev 16:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

A test page is now up at User talk:John Broughton/United States House elections, 2006, using transclusion.

It turns out that the software gets confused if the noinclude text at the top of the source page includes ANY section headings (i.e., any sections). By "confused", I mean that when you click "edit" on the target page - that is, on the transcluded text, you open an editing page on the WRONG section. To avoid that, the sections with details for the table are BELOW the table in the source article. In fact, they are below ALL of the transcluded text. While this is slightly confusing, I think it's unavoidable.

Anyway, I encourage people to take a look at the test page. (It's a day or so out of date, but that isn't the point.) Feel free to test it out by editing both it and the source page for the transclusion, United State House elections, 2006 - predictions. The predictions article is also a day or so out of date, and the text there will be replaced by current information once we implement this (if we do). John Broughton | Talk 16:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

It looks very good. I'd suggest (if not already done) strongly commenting the text for the noinclude section to tell editors NOT to put any headings in there. Go for it! (Side note: we should simplify the market-based predictor section.) jesup 19:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, done. I hope this isn't too confusing - in particular, I hope the details of the table, which no longer appear in this article, are edited to keep them in synch with the table. That may be a bit confusing at first, but I think that transclusion (or something similar) is what we want to do more of in the future (if nothing else, it could automate the updating of sections where there exists a main article elsewhere, and the section that mentions the main article is supposed to only be a brief summary.) In any case, I think this improves the article, and it does resolve the question of what to do with the predictions once the election has occurred. John Broughton | Talk 16:21, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

For the record, another limitation of transcluding is that references/footnotes in the text being brought into the article (via transclusion) are NOT handled correctly. The solution (some would see it as a kludge) is to make sure the text being brought in has NO footnotes/cites, just links. John Broughton | Talk 21:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposed

Now that the election is over, I suggest that United States House elections, 2006 - predictions be merged back into this article.—Markles 21:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Results - when?

I know the answer to this will vary according to time zeon and state and district...

1. What time does voting end?
2. When do the first offical results start to appear?

Tompw 11:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It depends on the state, but most end voting around 7pm or 8pm local time. Results generally start pouring out within a half hour or so as they crank up the machines to count the absentee ballots that have been returned and the precincts near the central tabulation office start to report in. --Bobblehead 14:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Linking

I relinked ARMPAC in PA-6. My reasoning is that while ARMPAC is linked at first reference, in such a long article having to search the page for each significant thing (just to find if it's linked) seems overly burdensome. This page is long for a reason (hopefully to shorten soon, but it will still be LONG), with lots of repeated information due to the repeated nature of issues in campaigns. We want to avoid over-linking, but we also need to consider utility. jesup 14:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

New Hampshire

We shouldn't remove all content from here. If there's a specific page, we can cut down the text here, but we shouldn't remove all of it, in keeping with the other races with campaign-specific pages. jesup 01:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree--there's a competitive race between Hodes (D) and Bass (R) at least. Bass started out with a big lead and a lot of name recognition, but Hodes has been closing the gap fast. In fact, the Jim McTeague in the October 23 issue of Barrons just predicted that Hodes, not Bass, will win in November. betsythedevine 02:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Texas 10th

I believe that this should be included as the ones "in contention" because of the minor celebrity of the former Libertarian presidential nominee in the running. I am unaware of any polls that include Badnarik which show the seat to not be in contention. If anyone can show one, then it could be pulled, I think. 24.98.182.200 01:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

An internal poll by Ankrum in late August referenced here, so take it with a grain of salt (while not a push poll, one should always be suspect of the numbers put out by campaigns), put McCaul (R) at 50.8%, Ankrum (D) at 41.6%, and Badnarik (L) at 7.6%. One way or another, it's not NPOV to call Badnarik the main opponent of McCaul when no evidence suggests this. --Souperman 01:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The results as of today are McCaul, 97618, Ankrum, 71232, Badnarik 7603. JoshNarins 22:32, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Ohio third district

I am sure that Mike Turner (R) is running for re-election against Richard Chema (D). But I guess it really doesn't mean much cause although Dayton votes Democrat, Mike Turner is uncontested! LILVOKA 15:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

politicalforecasting.com

Would someone mind adding the new section with this prediction to the general table, if it's considered worthy enough to have in the article? (And then I can move the text to the predictions page, so it no longer produces an odd result when one edits it.) Or delete it the section, if not worthy of being in the article? Thanks. John Broughton | Talk

Okay, thanks for fixing that. John Broughton | Talk 21:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thinking ahead

Next week, the article is going to need a lot of editing to reflect election results. I think it would be a good idea to discuss what the format of each paragraph should look like, before the election happens, so perhaps we can get some consensus on what everyone should actually do to update the article with results.

Example:

• Kansas's 1st congressional district— Incumbent Jerry Moran (R) is up against Democrat opponent John Doll. This district voted 72% in 2004 for George W. Bush, and Moran was unopposed in 2004. Moran is a mostly conservative Republican, and has supported reforming Medicare, cuts in the Federal Tax levels, and opposes a timetable for a withdrawal from the Iraq War. Though the 1st District is a Republican district, the most recent governor's race shows it is winnable for Democrats. The residents of this district supported Kathleen Sebelius, Democrat, in the 2002 Governor's race by a 52% to 48% margin. Moran has represented the district since 1997, often without an opponent for re-election. CQPolitics rating: Safe Republican.

Should ending of this article be simplified to read like this?

Moran has represented the district since 1997, often without an opponent for re-election. Moran defeated Doll, 57%-42%.

Or this?

Moran has represented the district since 1997, often without an opponent for re-election. The final rating for the race, by CQPolitics, was Safe Republican. Moran defeated Doll, 57%-42%.

And are there any other things we should think about? For example, I assume that the details in the paragraphs should be left essentially untouched; is that correct? John Broughton | Talk 21:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the later - keep the final rating. In most cases, nothing further; in some it may make sense to give an explanation, especially if the result was a surprise. jesup 23:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree -- keep the final rating -- but I would like to see a sentence or two (or 3-4 if needed) for all of these races, i.e., all the ones that are on this page. In other words: any House race that flips, or that was supposed to have been competitive, (or any surprises for races not on this list), should have an sentence or two explaining why (e.g., Weldon was mired in controversy when less than a month before the election, the FBI xyz; or Padgett had trouble getting her message out because Ney xyz, and so forth). Too often I read of biographies of former Congressman (or would be Congressman) and I never know why they won, or lost. This can be the beginning of a nice permanent record of such things. (In my dream world, the top 30-50 most competitive races, or the ones that flipped, would each have their own election page -- there's nothing wrong with creating election pages after the election). -- Sholom 00:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Pre-announcing Wikiproject: House Races 2006

Sholom and I hereby proposing a project to build on what is in this article. The goal is to create a campaign article for each notable campaign (that is, each and every race listed in this article).

The first purpose of the project is to move existing information about campaigns to new campaign articles before that information it disappears. Information related to campaigns will (and, by wikipedia policies, should) disappear starting next Wednesday, because of AfDs for some or most unsuccessful challengers, and because of the trimming of 2006 campaign sections in bios of incumbents. (Vito Fossella is a perfect example of where trimming will need to be done, after Tuesday night.) (Also, a few of the descriptions of races in this article are a bit lengthy; it would be nice to trim those back a bit while moving the detail to a campaign article.) There are already 11 campaign articles on House races; that's a start.

The second purpose of the project is to provide a fuller record (as Sholom commented on, above) about notable/competitive House campaigns. That means that editors will be encouraged to add text and sources to flesh out articles. The project will provide a checklist for what a really good campaign article might contain, to assist editors: polls, snapshots of campaign funding at various points, detailed results of both the primary and general election, a list of newspaper endorsements, a description of notable events in the campaign (via links to local newspaper stories, ideally), information on significant expenditures of money in the race by the nationaal committees, 527s, etc.; how ratings of the race changed over the course of the race; and so on). My hope is that those who have had the time and interest to contribute to this article will, after November 7th, continue to have an interest in this topic and a bit of time to give to this new project.

The third purpose of the project is to build a foundation for Wikiproject: House Races 2008. Describing (roughly) what that is intended to do, however, would be getting too far ahead of things.

At the moment (as in, for the next few days), I'm interested in the thoughts of others about this. I'm not necessarily looking for people to volunteer (that would be nice, of course), but rather for those with questions or suggestions to post those, here, so this wikiproject, when formally announced, will be better designed and described.

And, to answer one unasked question: no, there is nothing stopping anyone from starting to create new campaign articles before Tuesday night. Do provide a link, of course, so everyone knows. John Broughton | Talk 18:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Cursory discussion of "October surprises"?

It may be useful to have a brief paragraph on "October surprise" incidents in the run-up to the election, including of course the Foley and Haggard sex scandals, as well as the 11/5 announcement of the verdict against Saddam, and its possibly political timing. Comments? Haiduc 21:18, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

It's an interesting question. Clearly there is a lot of political posturing on both sides and attempt to embarrass or discredit opponents, but it is a very tricky thing to write up encyclopedically. It might even be worth a separate article (although that might be too much). The other major problem with terming things to be "October Surprises" is that you flirt very closely with WP:OR and could very well invite a lot of WP:POV from the less scrupulous editors out there (although I have always been impressed by the even minded discussion on this article). By labeling something as an "October Surprise" you add a lot of connotation to the event, namely that it was a premeditated uncovering of a previously unknown scandal or that some beneficial event was timed to happen just before the election. At worst, it implies conspiracy which may not be accurate. The event could have just happened to occur in October. The other thing is that it is completely unknown how say Saddam Hussein's guilty verdict will actually affect voting even if you find a source claiming that it will (it is not possible to know a priori only after the fact).

I think the only way to really include things like this is if an event actually makes a candidate drop out of the race (i.e. Mark Foley). Anyway those are my thoughts on it. --Rtrev 23:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The only way something like this could be broached would be by quoting others' comments on this or that event functioning as a "surprise," intentional or not. It does appear to be the case that at least some of these events have been driven by political motivations (Haggard's outing), and others have raised suspicions (the timing of Saddam's verdict, see this). Haiduc 23:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is any commonality among the events listed above (including one that occurred in November) to justify an article that discusses them as a group, at least not without speculating as to why there was not really any October surprise at all. John Broughton | Talk 00:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Election

Is there a page that lists when polls will open on November 7? --myselfalso 05:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so but [here] is a decent external site. Has info on everything by state.

It's also on a Wikipedia article. See United States general elections, 2006#Closing_times.

Pre-emptive Results Discussion

I didn't see if there had been discussion of this yet. But I wanted to at least discuss this somewhat before this evening. Polls begin closing at 6pm EST and the WSJ has a good "hour by hour" writeup of the different races. However, Wikipedia being an encyclopedia and not a news program or a political analysis journal. I believe that all results should wait until tomorrow. Does that sound reasonable? This should not be a place that people are looking for up-to-the-minute results anyway there will be plenty of other places for that. It also jives well with what WP is not. I am not really opposed to calling races that are patently obvious but then the threshold of "obvious" becomes completely arbitrary. So instead of just calling "sure thing" races I think we should have a wholesale wait. Any discussion? --Rtrev 14:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with you. We were having a similar main-page oriented discussing at T:ITNT. There are some polls that have already closed, and I think we can start reporting polls for that state a few hours after exit polls are out. Remember to provide SOURCES or else they will be removed by other editors on Wikipedia. Nishkid64 23:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

House called?

I'm watching CNN closely and they still don't show the Democrats having a majority. How are we already calling it one?

Liastnir 06:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Either someone changed it already or I misread. Guess everyone can disregard this! Liastnir 06:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Results

The results table is misleading. Many races remain too close to call, and WA-08 isn't even half in yet. We should leave off seat totals for now. —Cuiviénen 14:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree on the summary needing to be changed; the detail table is more up to date anyway. I'm seeing (on CNN site) indications that TX-23 is headed to a run off between the Republican incumbent and the second place Democrat, along with several of the uncalled races results rounding to 50-50% which indicate recounts very likely in these districts. I think WA-08 is likely to be called later today, but certaintely shouldn't be called here when none of the major news sites are yet. Also, while it won't affect the partisian breakdown, the New Orleans house seat is definately headed for a runoff (between 2 Democrats). 168.166.196.40 16:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing no more

I was thinking of removing the "ongoing election" template at the top of the page tomorrow. I know things are not 100% settled but the election part is now over. Does anyone disagree? If not I will remove the template some time later tomorrow (after 4:00 CST or so). --Rtrev 06:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Two house races are almost definately headed into a runoff election next month. (TX-23 & the New Orleans House District). Washington & Oregon are also well behind the rest of the country in counting the votes. (This is impacting one close House Race in Washington.) GA and NM each have an uncalled race where while almost all precints are in, but those that aren't counted appear to be more from the trailing candidate than the leading candidate. (CNN web site; assuming precints not in go the same way as the portion of the county that is in). The remainder of the uncalled are showing as 100% in but look close enough that recounts might be requested to me. 168.166.196.40 17:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I would keep the template until all the races are resolved including the two runoffs. --Cjs56 19:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused

There are 435 seats in 2002, but only 425 in 2006. Has there been a redistricting? 71.123.224.225 19:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

No, there are still 435 seats - 10 haven't been called, either because they're in a runoff or because they are still too close to declare a winner. --Souperman 19:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion on the house template dealing with these issues which go into far more detail on what the current status of those races are. Jon 19:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Exit Poll table in the wrong page entirely

There were no exit polls on the US House Races in 2006; largely because House Districts are too small. They were instead taken on state wide races such as US Senators & Governors. Accordingly, that section needs moved to US General Elections, 2006 page. Jon 19:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, table is misleading. Why take just some of the data? Either reproduce the whole table, or have some sort of criteria for which data is reported. -lissa

I think that is a very reasonable argument. It should be removed unless there are significant objections. It definitely runs into POV problems as well. --Rtrev 02:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

If it belongs anywhere, it would belong in the separate article about predictions, mentioned at the top of this article. John Broughton | Talk 19:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, hearing no objection, I moved it. John Broughton | Talk 21:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Map on bottom of page of voting summary issues

That map is currently effectively calling 9 races that are not called (CNN) whose partisian control is in dought. Most significantly TX-23 heading to runoff, and WA-08 where they are still only 75% counted in the larger county and 63% in the smaller county. (portions that make up the district.) A recount started today on the CT race that wasn't called. GA-12 still has one county only 98% of the vote counted. (Rest are reporting 100% in but recounts possible). Jon 15:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

That map is of Nov 6th polls, not results. The Results map is a redlink. jesup 16:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, then what's the source of that poll? Jon 19:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

If you click on the image, you'll see some info on the source. In any case, I've moved the poll to United States House elections, 2006 - predictions, where it belongs, if anywhere. I'd don't have any strong opinion as to whether it should be kept or discarded, but this isn't the right article for it. John Broughton | Talk 21:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Florida 13 back in undecided column?

On CNN here: CNN. Did something happen? Jd2718 02:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

An unusually high number of voters in Sarasota County (which went for Jennings) appear, according to reported voting totals, to have not voted at all in the Congressional race. The voting machines have been impounded; a judge is considering what to do. In my opinion this is the most egregious case of either machine failure or actual fraud in the 2006 election. One story is here; you can see lots more if you go to Google news and search on Jennings Sarasota. John Broughton | Talk 14:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

So far, to my knoweledge, none of the major news orgs that called it for the Republican (all but one major site) have taken back their call, which happened twince in FL in 2000. What it will come down is is weather under FL election law it's a voters responsibility to notice his choice wasn't lit up on the electronic screen or not and get the attention of a poll worker if you can't seem to push the selection close enough with enough presure in the area for making the selection. Jon 14:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, CNN has indeed taken back the call, but extremely quitely, adjusting their total, map color for the district, and the page of that race itself, but no direct link to an article stating they've taken back the call. I propose further discussion of this on the discussion for the template. Jon 18:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've moved this one back to undecided. USA Today is no longer calling this race as well. Unforunately the courts are going to have to decide this race. At least it's not the Presidency at stake like the last time there was a disputed election in FL. Feel free to change what I've written as long as it continues to make clear this race outcome is in doubt. Jon 14:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Winning Margin Chart TX-23

This winning margin chart appears to be calling TX-23 for the Republican with the medium shade of pink for that district. This race is headed for a runoff in December and so it should be white instead. Jon 14:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In addition, if you add all the Republican and Democratic votes together for this district, they are estinately equal, maybe even a few more D than R but less than 50% due to a 3rd party candidate. (The D vote was split between several candidates.)Jon 19:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

It's now especally bad because in the runoff, the D won. Jon 14:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Current Tag restored

With half a dozen races whose partisan winner still isn't clear, current tag still needed. See the discussion on the house summary template. Jon 14:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Standardize defeat wording please

Results: ____ defeated ____ #% to #% will suffice for the results sentence. Things like "easily defeated" or "barely defeated" are subjective qualifitive terms and much less encylopedic. Jon 01:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Now that the list is down to a managable list, I've done that myself. Jon 18:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this article about changes or about ALL races

I threw together a table summarizing all of the changes in membership at User:Wknight94/2006 Election Changes. Now I see this article is already absolutely enormous (almost 200 KB!) and already needs to be split up somehow. Are there plans for doing that? —Wknight94 (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The reason the article has ballooned in size is because it now contains results for ALL races. So does United States House elections, 2006 complete list. Earlier this year there was a proposal to merge the two, which failed, because at the time this article was about only NOTABLE races.

It seems obvious that either this article should NOT cover all races, all it should be merged. I'd prefer the first, but I'll defer to whatever the consensus is, of course. John Broughton | Talk 23:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't even see that complete list article. It looks like the complete state tables are being generated here and at that article by two people at the same time - we should make sure they know they're doing duplicate work. I figure those tables should be merged from here into the complete list article since this article would probably be about ¼ MB by the time the tables were finished here! Next, I'd vote to split out the sometimes lengthy state-by-state summaries into separate articles as is partially done at Florida congressional elections, 2006 (I say partially because there's still too much detail in this article). One or two lines should be all that's required here for each "notable" election. The details of all elections could be put into the separate state articles.

How do folks want to proceed? I'm relatively new to this area so I don't know who the regular people are or how things are usually done. Is there a project page where things of this magnitude are decided? I see there is a project for Congress pages but, if it's anything like the baseball project, not too many people really notice the project itself. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

At most I would think this article would be a summary article for the 30ish seats that switched parties, with the sub-articles about the races switches providing the details. Other than that, something about the national trend away from the Republican party would be good to include. As for the complete list, I'd think links to each state's House races article would be good enough. I would, however, make sure the details currently on this page are present on the state's articles before it's deleted from this page. It'd be a shame to see the content currently on this bloated page go to waste. --Bobblehead 02:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like that's two of us on approximately the same page. I'm not sure what you mean about the complete list though. Are you referring to the second page, United States House elections, 2006 complete list? That one has a list of every House race and seems to work pretty well. This article just needs to link to that one IMHO. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't clearer, but yes, I meant United States House elections, 2006 complete list. It doesn't really add anything that links from this article to a detailed article at the state level couldn't provide. But then, I'm also not completely set against its removal.;) Some might find value in it, I just don't. --Bobblehead 03:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

So you think, e.g., the table at United States House elections, 2006 complete list#Washington should be merged into Washington congressional elections, 2006? I can see that, sure. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm following the discussion here, but two notes: (a) I don't there there is a page for every state's 2006 Congressional elections; so wknight94's comment about merging probably wouldn't work for all 50 states; and (b) for each section about a state in THIS article, it would be easy to put a link that points directly to the section in the "complete list" article for that state. John Broughton | Talk 15:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm talking specifically about the tables being introduced into United States House elections, 2006 - they're already in United States House elections, 2006 complete list. But, as Bobblehead suggested, maybe that whole complete list article should be divided and merged into the individual state house election articles. But John, you're right, not all of the state house elections have articles. Not yet anyway!  :) It might be good to make articles for all of them except, of course, several states only had a single race. I'm going to at least remove the tables from United States House elections, 2006 as well as some of the longer "summaries". 196 KB is way too big - the lights in my house dim when I try to bring up this article!  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 15:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing the tables from the state sections that have them, in this article, would be a great first step, in my opinion. John Broughton | Talk 23:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm working towards that by making sure all of the info contained in them is merged into the complete list article. (Although the editor who is adding them here continues to do so and has thusfar ignored my invitation to discuss). —Wknight94 (talk) 02:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of images?

Along the lines of trimming this beast, having all of these images here seems to violate point 8 of WP:FUC. Unless someone disagrees, I'm likely to remove them all. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, even if confined to new members of congress of a different party than the one they are replacing it would be a pain for dial up users to load the page. Jon 19:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

More than that, they violate policy. I'm busy now if someone else wants to remove them. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the ones in the Arizona section, as a start. Perhaps it would be good to wait (say) 24 hours and see if anyone notices (that is, objects)? John Broughton | Talk 20:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Close enough. I'm going to remove some more. John Broughton | Talk 17:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If I'd had time this morning, I was going to nuke them all (the fair use ones anyway). —Wknight94 (talk) 17:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

They're decorative, and it makes no sense to have just a few. No need to discriminate. John Broughton | Talk 01:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that's done. A pleasure doing business. John Broughton | Talk 17:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

FYI, the only image that violated policy were the fair use ones. If you removed the rest for some other reason, that's fine too... I only removed the fair use ones last night. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Aesthetics, really - it looks strange with some images and mostly not. Or, for those who don't think wikipedia should worry about aesthetics, let's say that having some images up would just encourage other editors to put up fair use images that would just have to be taken down, with explanations and discussion and etc. Much simpler this way. And loads faster, too. John Broughton | Talk 20:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

True and true - unchallenged.  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing election tag restored

Early voting started for TX-23 R vs D runoff on Sat Dec 2. Election day for this is Dec 12. The D vs D runoff in LA-02 is Dec 9. Jon 19:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

And now removed; 2nd place finishers in LA-02 and TX-23 conceeded. Jon 14:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Voter turnout

Why is the voter turnout (as a percentage of the electorate) not given? I asked a similar question at Talk:United_States_Senate_elections,_2006#Voter_turnout, so I won't repeat all that here. DirkvdM 11:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Untitled

Time to update this, I think.

• To show a Democratic pickup, |- bgcolor="#B3D9FF"
• To show a Republican pickup, |- bgcolor="#FFB3B3"

Moving a Q&A from the main article to the talk. The full text is preserved here: What does that jargon "pickup" mean? Please define before you delete this. Furthermore, what does it mean when a race indicates BOTH colors?

Pickup is where the seat changes hands from one party to another. A race can only be won by one party, so only one color should be used to indicate a change.

I know it's early, but....

At 80k, this article is already over the recommended length. It probably has to be large to be complete, but I'd like to suggest eliminating the district maps to help it load faster (if they can be found and linked to somewhere else).

Also, was the data (including election results) copied directly from the 2004 article? I'd just like to verify that before doing any updating myself. --Ajdz 21:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem on the graphics. Take a look at California, though. We might want to use that one for the '04 list as well, since it does the same thing there. And yes, this was a direct copy of the '04 list. Now that it's part of the project, I hope we'll get more help identifying all the candidates around the 435 Congressional Districts. This is a big job. I'm glad it's on Wikipedia. Chadlupkes 23:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Already elected?

Wait, why are some races colored as being pickups when the race hasn't been run yet? Or am I misunderstanding the color code? 68.39.174.238 03:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The information is copied from the 2004 results article and all races aren't updated yet. --Ajdz 06:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't Democratic candidates appear in blue and Republicans in red? This color code has been standard in the media since 2000. 71.56.142.157 08:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Right now the only color that should be in there is in links (probably blue articles exist, red ones don't). There is a color code like that for pickups though. --Ajdz 15:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Also...

I don't quite see where the %s are coming from, but the dude in the 3rd district of South Carolina isn't unopposed, according to the page on him he's got a challenger. 68.39.174.238 22:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The %'s are coming from 2004. We're taking them out until the election results. Chadlupkes 15:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

white space

Help!! I'm trying to eliminate the white space under Alabama, and having no luck. Chadlupkes 19:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Huh? What browser are you using? I see no white space (Firefox 1.5 on a Mac) -Pete 20:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

John Doll

John Doll redirects to John J. Doll. This is probably not correct. I am not sure. --Edcolins 07:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

John Thrasher wiki link

The John Thrasher (Democrat, AZ) link is one to a John thrasher that died before 1900. Hope we're not choosing between a Republican and a dead man (again).

Links to congressional election articles?

There don't appear to be any links to articles (where they exist) on individual races - for example, New York 20th congressional district election, 2006. Given the current activity in deleting wikipedia articles on candidates, I'd expect there to be more of these as time goes on. What would it take to modify this article to provide for such links? Or can I just go ahead and start changing the links in the first column of the tables? John Broughton 20:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Highlighting incumbants that won't be returning to the House

I attempted to help highlight incumbants (starting with the State of Georgia) that won't be returning to the House due to retirement, primary defeats, or due to other reasons. For those who have put this article together, if you don't like this suggestion, please revert back. Otherwise, please extend the shading to the rest of the chart. --user:mnw2000 15:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to suggest highlighting incumbants that have no opposition with green shading as they will be automatically re-elected. Red shading for incumbants that will not return, green shading for incumbants that will return. user:mnw2000 02:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the shading for retiring/etc. should be gray, and dump the shading for unopposed candidates. The red/blue shading should be reserved for post-election, to denote seats that were picked up by the opposing party (as it is in the 2004 election page). Johnny longtorso 02:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I took your suggestion and removed all the "unopposed candidates" shading and replaced all the "will not returning" incumbents with a light grey shading. I still feel that it would be valuable to see all the races (graphically) that are not really "races" at all. (I counted and there are 40 unopposed races, not to mention races that have no opponent of significance.) user:mnw2000 04:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The light grey shading of the incumbants not running looks good. How about using grey shading of the incumbant in opponents box where there is no opponent? I will try it with New York to see how it looks. user:mnw2000 13:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"Result" verus "2006 result" versus "Results" versus "Opponent" ??

Why is the heading for the last column of the tables, for each state, inconsistent? John Broughton | Talk 20:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Results is inappropriate pre-election. I think that all the last columns should be labeled 'candidates' if they are to include the incumbent again in that column, which they do. Opponent doesn't work, unless the incumbent candidate (who starts the row anyway) is not included in the last column. my 2 cents.--Duff 21:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed with Duff. Awkward having yourself as an opponent. -Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 15:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Vermont At Large

Should this race be shaded blue. It is really not a Democrat switch since the previous officeholder of this seat was a Democrat caucusing Independent, Bernie Sanders. user:mnw2000 05:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings either way in isolation, but it should probably be consistant with how the CT & VT Senate seats are being treated. (Both elected as Independents and caucusing with the Democrats). Jon 21:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Update

It looks like most of the results have been posted a few days ago, but the states of Colorado, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin are still missing. Academic Challenger 01:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I merged in some of the tables that were slowly being posted to United States House elections, 2006 but the editor who was adding them there wasn't finished. There are probably a few others incomplete too. The whole lot should probably be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

TX-23, LA-02, OH-15

• A state ordered automatic recount is still in progress for OH-15 so I've replaced "reelected" with "recount in progress" and debodified the leading candidate.
• Early voting started last weekend for TX-23 runoff election schledued Dec 12 & LA-02 Runoff is Dec 9 so I've placed an ongoing election tag.

Jon 21:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

States with only one district are missing maps

I see a map for every state with more than one Representive but not those. Those outside the US might benifit from seeing similar maps to help keep our states straight in their minds. Jon 22:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

FL-13

Shouldn't the yellow be removed from these cells? The state has certified the Republican as the winner. Yes, an election challenge is in progress but it's in court and the loser could appeal to (the next) Congress. Note that the last time an election was disputed in the US Congress (LA Senate race a few years back), they sat the state certified winner temporarily pending the challenge and then took a full year before throwing out the challenge. Jon 22:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the yellow should remain until someone is seated, even temporarily, in January; I think there is a good chance that the new Congress will refuse to seat Buchanan, and either order a new election or seat Jennings. Wikipedia isn't a crystal ball (per WP:NOT, and I think in this case removing the yellow would actually be predicting that Buchanan will be seated. John Broughton | Talk 16:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the court cases appear (to me at least) to be going Buchanan's way. The machine investigation seems to show that the touch screens were working, athough perhaps not the best arrangement of races in the ballots was used. The court standards for oordering new elections tends to be actual fraud proven of a magntitude sufficent to throw the outcome into dought. Congressional standards though aren't the same, for the US house it's whatever 218 congressman agree on (assuming all members are present.) Jon 15:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

With a Democratic majority, well... we'll see what this means. There's been claims that no matter what the precise problem was, *something* certainly went wrong... http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002211.php —Nightstallion (?) 01:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Today, the AP is reporting the Democratic caucus has voted to temporarily seat Buchanan while they investigate. Jon 23:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How long will the House investigate, when will they announce whether they will unseat Buchanan or not? —Nightstallion (?) 12:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to status

For incumbents that ran for another office, the term "retired" is being used even when the individual has won election to the other office. It could be assumed that by choosing to leave the House and run for another office would result in retirement if they lost, but if they won, aren't they still employed. They have not retired (and do not get retirement benefits).

I recommend the following, and more informative, status:

If they ran for another office (such as Governor) and lost - Ran for Governor (lost)
If they ran for another office (such as Governor) and won - Ran for Governor (won)

user:mnw2000 05:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ohio-15

There seems to be some debate on Ohio 15's status. AP is reporting that the recount is now complete, and shows that the leading candidate margin of victory actually increased. (Just slightly by seven votes). AP is also reporting that the trailing candidate has Jury Duty today and so is unadvaiable by phone. I also note that OH-15 has been added to the R column in the template for US House Elections, 2006. Jon 22:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

2008?

So, when should we start building the page for 2008? Chadlupkes 23:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

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