How have 3 Dems escaped voter fury? By voting against Obama

What if the big reason Democrats are wallowing is because of their votes for the Obama agenda? And what would things look like if they hadn't supported it? Happily, an (admittedly unscientific) experiment exists to offer some insight.

Troll through the voting rolls, and you'll find an exclusive club of three House Democrats running for re-election who voted against the more controversial pieces of the Obama agenda: the $862 billion stimulus, Mr. Obama's $3.5 trillion budget, cap and trade and, of course, ObamaCare. Troll through the polls today, and you'll find a near-exclusive club of three House Democrats who are beating every electoral expectation. Were history, incumbency and the economy the main factors this fall, Idaho's Walt Minnick, Alabama's Bobby Bright and Mississippi's Gene Taylor would be packing up. That they aren't is a resounding statement on a failed Obama vision.

Take Idaho. Mr. Minnick is the first Democrat that state has sent to Congress since 1995. In 2008 he beat a controversial Republican by a mere 4,000 votes in a district that went 61% for John McCain. Mr. Minnick had barely finished his acceptance speech before political prognosticators labeled him the most vulnerable Democrat in 2010.

Yet he has served as a Western independent who shares the public's top concerns of runaway spending and big government. His record has bottled up his worthy GOP opponent, Raul Labrador.

While endangered House Democrats such as Dina Titus (Nevada) and Harry Teague (New Mexico) must explain their votes for energy taxes, Mr. Minnick used his votes to earn the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Idaho building industry. While Betsy Markey (Colorado) and John Boccieri (Ohio) try to reconcile their promises of fiscal responsibility with the stimulus, the Idaho press has trumpeted Mr. Minnick's award of "Taxpayer Hero" by the influential Citizens Against Government Waste. Mr. Minnick credits his standing to his message of "fiscal responsibility" but acknowledges it's his votes that have distinguished him from those practicing "election year puffery."

Mr. Bright's 2008 victory made Mr. Minnick's look easy. He won by 267 votes in a seat held by Republicans since 1964. The Alabama district is heavily conservative, and getting more so. Mr. Bright's strategy has been to cast himself as the proud rebel of his caucus. In the past few months he's also voted against Democrats' $26 billion bailout of unionized public employees and unemployment benefit extensions. He's slapped the administration on expiring Bush tax cuts. "I don't care if it's the wealthiest of the wealthy, you don't raise their taxes," he said in July. "In a recession, you don't tax, burden and restrict."

Some of this is pure politics (see Mr. Bright's recent see-saw on immigration), but on the whole he's given his GOP competitor, the bright young Martha Roby, few openings. The one poll in the race, in February, had the Democrat up 24 points. That margin has surely narrowed dramatically, but handicappers still rate this race a toss-up—when it ought to be a GOP blowout.

And finally there's the Gulf Coast's Mr. Taylor, sitting in the nation's most conservative district held by a Democrat. The 11-term Mississippian has a reputation as a maverick, more so since Mr. Obama's inauguration. He's facing his strongest opponent in years, Marine reservist and state Rep. Steven Palazzo. The GOP is itching for Mr. Taylor's scalp, and even the Democrat acknowledges this is a challenge to take seriously. Yet he remains the favorite.