Author’s Note: House totals are 434, due to one vacancy. Also, the new Representatives who had been elected in the 2014 midterm elections and will be taking office on January 6 have been included.
Tomorrow, the full U.S. House will vote on a new Speaker. Speaker Boehner is running for a third term and is expected to win. However, Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Ted Yoho (R-FL) have announced formal challenges to Boehner and numerous other Republicans have said that they will vote against Boehner.
First, there is the general House breakdown.
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However, it is important to remember the generational breakdown of the House. This is important because more recent congressmen and women tend to be more on the ideological extremes.
Our chart looks at all of the serving Representatives who have been elected since 2008.
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The majority of those who have been elected since 2008 are also Republican.
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Finally, the amount of new Representatives that are taking office are also majority Republican. This is no surprise because the Republicans increased their majority during the 2014 midterm elections and new ones were elected. 2014 saw strong gains for the Tea Party on the House side as the Republicans focused on the Senate and super PACs becoming increasingly active in primaries. Redistricting, or what opponents would call gerrymandering, has led to many seats becoming safe for one party. Due to this, the real competition exists in the primaries. The parties are often hesitant to get involved with primaries, due to fear of irritating a potential new member. However, outside groups spend large amounts of money and organize their volunteers for the primaries.
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