House Democratic Leadership Race

The animation below shows a simple histogram of the first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores for the 107^th House. The dots below the histogram show the approximate locations of Speaker Hastert (R-IL), Majority Leader Armey (R-TX), Majority Leader Elect Delay (R-TX), Minority Leader Gephardt (D-MO), and the 4 candidates for Minority Leader -- Pelosi (D-CA), Frost (D-TX), Ford (D-TN), and Kaptur (D-OH). Delay and Armey are essentially indistinguishable while the choice of Nancy Pelosi is a significant move to the left by the Democratic Caucus.