Indiana's 8th congressional district

As of 2013.

• 13 Crawford County exists in both the 8th and 9th Congressional Districts. Within Crawford County, two whole townships; Boone, and Johnson exist in the 8th District, while two other townships; Patoka, and Union, are partitioned by Indiana State Road 145 and Interstate 64 respectively.

Based in Evansville, the 8th Congressional District was widened when Indiana lost a seat after the 2000 U.S. Census to include much of the former 5th and 7th Congressional Districts. At that time, Bloomington (the home of former U.S. Representative Frank McCloskey) was moved into the 9th Congressional District, while the 8th Congressional District was extended northward to include much of the former 7th Congressional District in west-central Indiana, including Terre Haute. As a result of this expansion, the district is the largest in area in Indiana with all or part of 18 counties.

The district has been nicknamed "The Bloody Eighth" because of a series of hard-fought campaigns and political reversals. Unlike most other districts in the state, which tend to give their representatives long tenures in Washington, the 8th Congressional District has a reputation for frequently ousting incumbents from both parties.[4] Voters in the district ousted six incumbents from 1966 to 1982. The election in 1984 was so close that the House of Representatives itself determined which of two candidates to seat, accepting the recommendation of a Democratically controlled House task force sent to Indiana to count the ballots, with the winner, Democrat Frank McCloskey, holding a margin of four votes out of 233,000 cast.[5] After that, McCloskey was reelected four more times before losing to Republican John Hostettler in 1994, amid the Republican Revolution. Hostettler represented the district for six terms before being defeated in a landslide by moderate Democrat Brad Ellsworth in 2006. It was the first district picked up by the Democrats that year, and was one of thirty nationwide that they gained while regaining control of the House.[6] Ellsworth ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2010 and was succeeded by Republican Larry Bucshon in the same election cycle. Although Southern Indiana is ancestrally Democratic, the Democrats in this area are nowhere near as liberal as their counterparts in the rest of the state. Historically, it had a character similar to Yellow Dog Democrat districts in neighboring Kentucky. The district also has a strong tint of social conservatism.

In 2000, a New York Times reporter said of the district: "With a populist streak and a conservative bent, this district does not cotton to country club Republicans or to social-engineering liberals," and also said, "More than 95 percent white and about 41 percent rural, the region shares much of the flavor of the Bible Belt."[7]

In 2013, the district shifted and was pushed southward toward Evansville, losing Fountain and Warren Counties, and gaining Dubois, Perry, and Spencer Counties, and a portion of Crawford County, uniting southwestern Indiana under one district.

2003 - 2013

Indiana congressional districts before and after the most recent redistricting

Note: There has been another change since the "most recent" image, reflected correctly on the 'Indiana districts' page.

• Indiana's congressional districts
• List of United States congressional districts

• Martis, Kenneth C. (1989). The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
• Martis, Kenneth C. (1982). The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
• Congressional Biographical Directory of the United States 1774–present