The Republican Party has experienced large congressional losses in the past two election cycles. These defeats reveal a problematic trend: the party is becoming increasingly regional and less broad-based. The Republican Party is becoming more ideologically pure, with fewer moderate Republicans populating the halls of Congress. Republicans must increase their appeals among moderates and non-Southerners if they hope to return to the majority.

Research Fellow John C. Fortier

In two elections, the 12-year House Republican majority has been transformed into a smaller, more conservative, Southern-dominated minority.

It was the Democrats' year in every way in 2008, as it was in 2006. Democrats prevailed in the presidential race, in each chamber of Congress and even in the state legislatures. Obama's win was impressive, but his margin of victory was nothing special. Since 1968, the winning presidential candidate has averaged 395 electoral votes and a margin of 10 percentage points in the popular vote, compared with Obama's 365 electoral votes and nearly 7-point win in the popular vote.

It is the totality of the Democratic victory in 2006 and 2008, not just Obama's victory, that is the biggest message of change. And nowhere can this change be seen as clearly as in the demise of the House Republican Conference.

After sweeping to victory in the House in 1994, for their first majority in 40 years, Republicans had a broad-based coalition. They gained 54 seats throughout the country, taking seats from Democrats in 31 states. They held seats in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Mexico, where they will hold none when the 111th Congress convenes in January. They had at least two representatives in 39 states. Today, there are 21 states with only one House Republican or none.

The magnitude of the change over two election cycles is breathtaking. After the 2004 election, the Republican majority stood at 230 seats. In the 111th Congress, Republicans will have 178 seats, assuming that they prevail in districts where races have not been called but GOP candidates are leading and that they win a December runoff to replace retiring Representative Jim McCrery (R-Louisiana).

What kinds of seats have Republicans lost? Marginal seats. After 2004, Republicans held 21 districts where President Bush received 50 percent or less of the vote. Fourteen of those seats are now in Democratic hands. And of the 79 Republican-held districts with the lowest Bush vote, 39 have switched to the Democratic column.

Moderate Republicans have also suffered. Using Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal's vote rating system, of the 36 most moderate members of the Republican caucus in the 110th Congress, only 15 will remain come January, and 18 of those 36 will be replaced by Democrats. More than half of the 81 most moderate Republicans will leave the House, and 30 will be replaced by Democrats.

And regionally, the Republican Party has retreated to its base, the South. When Republicans took over the House in 1994, they started with just over one-third of the caucus, or 78 out of 230 Republicans, coming from the South or Southern border states of Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and West Virginia. In the 111th, they may have 48 percent of the caucus from that region, or 85 out of 178 seats.

Since 1994, while Republicans have gained seats in the South, they have lost a net of more than 50 seats, with losses in all of the other regions. To take the Northeast as an example, there are no Republican House members from New England, only three in New York, and only one in Maryland. In 1994, Republicans held 45 seats in the Northeast, compared with only 16 after this election.

If, during the 111th Congress, you take an Acela train to Boston from Union Station in Washington, you will pass through the districts of only two Republican members, 13 miles of track in Delaware represented by Michael Castle and a similarly small stretch of track running through the New Jersey district of newly elected Leonard Lance. Don't blink--you might miss them.

While Republicans hold no level of power in Washington, Congress offers the best immediate opportunity to rebuild. In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans can point to the common--though by no means universal--trend of the party that's out of the White House gaining congressional seats.

Still, the challenge for House Republicans is clear: Attract more moderates and non-Southerners to the party, or face another long period in the minority.

John C. Fortier is a research fellow at AEI.