Indiana's 8th congressional district
Indiana's 8th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Indiana. Based in southwest and west central Indiana, the district is anchored in Evansville and also includes Jasper, Princeton, Terre Haute, Vincennes and Washington.
Commonly referred to as "The Bloody Eighth" at the local levels, it was formerly a notorious swing district. However, due to a political realignment similar to contemporary realignment happening in the Deep South and Appalachia, it has in recent elections become a safe Republican district.
Election results from presidential races
| Year | Office | Results |
| 2000 | President | George W. Bush 57% - Al Gore 42% |
| 2004 | President | George W. Bush 62% - John Kerry 38% |
| 2008 | President | John McCain 50.6% - Barack Obama 48.1% |
| 2012 | President | Mitt Romney 58.4% - Barack Obama 39.6% |
| 2016 | President | Donald Trump 64.6% - Hillary Clinton 31% |
Counties located in Indiana's 8th Congressional District
As of 2013.| # County | # County | # County | # County | # County |
| 11 Clay Brazil 26,556 | 13* Crawford English 10,713 | 14 Daviess Washington 30,726 | 19 Dubois Jasper 41,889 | 26 Gibson Princeton 39,750 |
| 28 Greene Bloomfield 33,750 | 42 Knox Vincennes 38,920 | 51 Martin Shoals 10,370 | 60 Owen Spencer 21,790 | 61 Parke Rockville 17,250 |
| 62 Perry Tell City 19,332 | 63 Pike Petersburg 12,845 | 65 Posey Mt. Vernon 27,500 | 74 Spencer Rockport 20,952 | 77 Sullivan Sullivan 21,750 |
| 82 Vanderburgh Evansville 191,220 | 83 Vermillion Newport 16,790 | 84 Vigo Terre Haute 105,900 | 87 Warrick Boonville 59,700 | - |
- 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.
Cities of 10,000 or more people
- Evansville - 117,429
- Terre Haute - 60,785
- Vincennes - 18,423
- Jasper - 15,038
- Washington - 11,509
2,500 - 10,000 people
- Princeton - 8,644
- Brazil - 7,912
- Tell City - 7,272
- Mt. Vernon - 6,687
- Boonville - 6,246
- Linton - 5,413
- Clinton - 4,893
- North Terre Haute - 4,305
- Sullivan - 4,249
- Newburgh - 3,325
- Fort Branch - 2,771
- Bicknell - 2,892
History
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. 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 sit, 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. 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 taking control the House. 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; most of them are Blue Dogs. 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."
In 2013, the district shifted away from Northern Indiana and more towards 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.