George W. Bush received 33% of the vote in this district in 2004. The district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of D +20. The district and its predecessors have been in Democratic hands for all but four years since 1909. Two of those years came after Dan Rostenkowski lost his seat to Republican Michael Patrick Flanagan because of the Congressional Post Office scandal. On a national level, the scandal helped prompt the Republican Revolution of 1994. However, Flanagan was defeated after only one term by State Representative Rod Blagojevich in 1996, and no Republican has managed even 35 percent of the vote in the district since then. Blagojevich handed the seat to Emanuel in 2003.