Instead, midterm casualties tend to be those House Democrats who do not have such highly liberal scores. Figure 2 demonstrates as much. It plots (1) the average ADA score of the “heroes and near-heroes”; (2) the average ADA score for House Democrats; and (3) the average score of Democrats who lost to a Republican in that year’s election (we omit 2006 and 2018, in which no incumbent Democrat lost).

The average score of incumbent Democrats who lost elections over the entire 1994-2020 time period is always well below the average ADA score of the super liberals. In addition, with the exception of 2000, the average loser’s score is below the average ADA score for all Democrats in the House. These results indicates that moderate incumbent Democrats are ultimately the ones punished by voters in elections.

In general, the “heroes and near-heroes” are electorally safe.