Top 10 Most Vulnerable: Almost All Are Democratic Freshmen

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• House Overview: One Year Out: Parties Prep for the Big Dance
• Top 10 Most Vulnerable: Almost All Are Democratic Freshmen
• Senate Picture Clouded by Primaries, Uncertainties
• Filing Deadlines and Primary Dates by State
• Roll Call Casualty List: Who's Leaving Congress in 2010
• The Big Picture: Color-Coded Ratings for all 435 House Districts

Regional Breakdowns

• New England: Connecticut Senate Showdown Is Hottest Ticket in Town
• Mid-Atlantic: Republicans Hope to End the Bleeding Next Year
• South: GOP Tries to Till New Soil in Once-Fertile Region
• Midwest: Ohio, Illinois Open-Seat Senate Races Get Top Billing
• Plains: Home to Full Range of Political Activity
• Southwest: GOP Looking to Recapture House Seats It Lost
• Mountain: Markey, Minnick Among Most Vulnerable Frosh
• West: Veterans in Both Parties Find Themselves Targeted

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There’s a conundrum in Roll Call’s list of the 10 House Members who appear the most vulnerable to defeat in their 2010 re-election contests.

Nine of the 10 are Democrats. But that is because their party did so exceptionally well in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

The Democrats would have built a solid House majority just by picking the “low-hanging fruit” — defeating Republican incumbents or winning GOP open seats in districts that had already been trending Democratic or that swung sharply as public approval of President George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans plunged.

But to build the big majority that they currently enjoy, the Democrats had to push into some strongly Republican territory. And just as Bush played a big role in the Democratic sweeps of the past two cycles, you can expect that President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will play starring roles in TV attack ads next fall targeting vulnerable Democrats.

Of the nine Democrats on this list, six represent districts that voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over Obama for president in 2008. Freshman Reps. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.) and Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) each represents a district that favored McCain by a margin of 26 points.

The other three most vulnerable Democrats are from districts that swung to Obama but favored Bush at the top of the GOP ticket in 2004.

If, as Republicans argue, 2010 will be a more favorable year for their party, several at-risk Democrats will have their tenures cut short. Even if the Democrats regain some momentum, it wouldn’t be surprising if some of these Members get sent packing because history is not on their side: The party in the White House almost always loses seats in the midterm elections.

Nonetheless, the one Republican on the list, freshman Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (La.), may be the single-most vulnerable incumbent. Cao’s 2008 victory, in a majority-black Democratic stronghold based in New Orleans, still looks implausible. But few challengers have the benefit of an opponent as damaged as was Cao’s: Then-Rep. William Jefferson (D), who ran while under indictment on federal corruption charges, which he was convicted of after his defeat.

Members are listed alphabetically and not ranked in order of vulnerability.

Bobby Bright (D-Ala.)

One of the first traditional conservative Democratic strongholds to go Republican in the 1960s, southeastern Alabama’s 2nd district had long been represented by Rep. Terry Everett (R). But Everett retired in 2008, and Bright — the conservative mayor of Montgomery who has personal ties to the district’s rural areas ­­— gave the Democrats a chance of a lifetime. Still, district voters showed their Republican side as they favored Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) for president by a huge margin, even as they elected Bright to the House by less than 1 point. The GOP is touting Montgomery City Councilwoman Martha Roby as a top recruit.

Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.)

Cao has tried to convince his overwhelmingly Democratic constituency that he is an independent, moderate Republican. Congressional Quarterly found that through August, Cao sided with most Republican colleagues against most Democrats on just 58 percent of party-line votes, the lowest “party unity” score among GOP Members. And Cao, a member of the district’s minority Vietnamese-American community, has focused heavily on the problems of those affected by Hurricane Katrina, which most afflicted the district’s large African-American population. But this is a district that went 75 percent for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential contest — and Cao defeated Jefferson, the scandal-plagued incumbent who stood accused of wrapping thousands of dollars in ill-gotten gains in foil and hiding it in his freezer. State Reps. Cedric Richmond and Juan LaFonta are running for the Democratic nomination.

Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio)