“A PA Democrat named Atkinson switched in 1981 and was promptly retired by the liberal PA voters in 1982.”
It is obviously easier to win as a Republican in the PA-10 than as a Democrat. Carney won in 2006 solely because the incumbent Republican, Don Sherwood, was forced to admit to an extramarital affair and to deny that he had been choking his mistress right before she called 911 on him (and it being a ridiculously bad years for Republicans didn’t hurt; he was reelected in 2008 because of bad GOP recruiting and the environment continuing to be toxic for the GOP.
The only way that Carney can lose reelection if he switches to the GOP is if he loses the GOP primary. For that to happen, a first- or high-second-tier candidate has to run against him, which I’m afraid may not happen. Frankly, I don’t think that Carney is conservative enough to make an acceptable Republican Representative for a conservative district, and if his staying with the RATs leads to a strong GOP challenger making the race then I’d rather he stayed with the RATs so that we can beat him in November.
Carney? He’s not a moonbat but I wouldn’t have thought he’d be pliable to being a Republican. He voted for Obamacare.
About Atkinson, his ACU lifetime rating was 55. He backed Kennedy in 1980 over.
He lost in 1982, redistricting may have played a part although it’s very possible the district was just renumbered and stayed mostly the same. He was from Beaver County and was elected from the 25th and ran in 82 in the 4th which is still the 4th today (the former Ron Klink, Melissa Hart seat). It looks like the area went for Mondale in 1984. And ‘82 was a rat year.
U.S. Attorney Tom Marino is thinking of running against Carney.
A mention about Eugene Atkinson and that district... The then-25th district that sent him elected one of the most curious Republicans of the 1970s, one Gary Myers. Myers, essentially a non-politician, defeated a poorly-regarded Dem incumbent, Frank Clark in 1974, becoming one of the few GOP gains in the Watergate fiasco (ironically, Myers lost by 12% to Clark in 1972 in a district that Nixon carried 60-40%). Myers ran for reelection, and even as Carter carried it over Ford (54-46%), he beat Atkinson in his first Congressional run by a 57-43% margin. Myers then did something nobody in DC (and Michael Barone) could understand, after making a Dem-leaning House seat safe for the GOP, he just walked away after two terms, went back to his old job as a steel mill foreman.
Still, he left the GOP brand in such good stead that the GOP candidate performed quite well against Atkinson in 1978 (losing by just 4%, Atkinson only won 46% in winning). He became the most Conservative-voting Dem from PA in his freshman term, and won 67% in 1980 (Reagan didn’t win the district, losing to Carter, 45-48%). He was, however, well regarded by Pres. Reagan (after he was shot, Reagan called Atkinson who was on a radio talk show and made a personal appeal to get him to vote for his budget, which he did). The dilemma Atkinson faced for 1982 was twofold (just for starters). One, the GOP held control of redistricting in the state under Gov. Dick Thornburgh, and the state was set to lose two House seats. Atkinson opted to switch to the GOP in October 1981.
The switch was not without problems, since although his voting record was good (well, at least for a Dem). The local GOP in the district wasn’t hot about him, and he scored an unimpressive primary renomination of just 56-44%. The new 4th district was created for Atkinson, and had a slight GOP lean (but VERY slight, Reagan carried it just 47-46%). But he had the additional problem of looking like an opportunist (going from supporting Ted Kennedy to Reagan in the span of a year) and worse, because the economy was not yet reported to be “turning around” (which it wouldn’t be until AFTER the ‘82 midterms, how convenient for the Dems claiming Reagans policies weren’t working), that area swung hard to the Dems in November and Atkinson lost to the future infamous Democrat Joe Kolter by an embarrassing 60-39% margin (even as Atkinson outspent Kolter by a 3-to-2 margin).
Our controlling the legislature had no positive outcome, we went into the 1982 elections in PA with a 13R-11D-1 Vacant delegation with the intention of making the state into a 16R-7D delegation, but instead, the Dems emerged with a 13D-10R victory (we lost incumbents in the 3rd, 4th (Atkinson), 8th & 11th, failed to dislodge two Dem incumbents in the 7th and 18th). Indeed, the only gain of a Dem seat (and that solely due to the fact that the incumbent quit and made a quixotic run for Governor) was that of George Gekas in the 17th (Gekas, ironically, would be the sole victim in 2002 when it was presumed he’d be safe, and instead of forcing out Democrat Tim Holden whose seat was eliminated, Holden turned the tables, ran and beat Gekas).