Notre Dame and Saint Mary's were well represented on ballots on Election Day with seven graduates between the two institutions being re-elected to Congress.
Four Notre Dame alumni and three Saint Mary's alumnae held onto their House seats and will return to Washington, D.C. as members of the 109th Congress.
Among the victorious Notre Dame alumni were two of Indiana's nine congressional representatives. Represent-ative to Indiana's 1st district Peter Visclosky won a 10 term. A Democrat, Visclosky graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1973. Republican Mark Souder, who earned an MBA from Notre Dame in 1974, was elected for a sixth time as representative to Indiana's 3rd District.
Another Notre Dame alumnus, 1968 Law School graduate and Republican Peter King, was re-elected to his eighth term in New York's 3rd District. Fellow Republican Michael Ferguson was voted into New Jersey's 7th district for a third time. Ferguson received a bachelor's degree in political science from Notre Dame in 1992.
Among the Saint Mary's graduates re-elected was Anne Meagher Northup of Kentucky's 3rd District. Northup earned degrees in business and economics from Saint Mary's in 1970. She was easily re-elected over her democratic opponent for a sixth term. When elected for the first time in 1996, Northup was the first woman in Kentucky to have been elected to Congress since 1926.
Nineteen sixty-six Saint Mary's graduate Donna Christensen was elected to her fifth term as congressional delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Democratic congresswoman is the first female physician in the history of the U.S. Congress, the first woman to represent an offshore Territory and the first woman delegate from the Virgin Islands. Christensen chairs the Congressional Black Caucus' Health Braintrust, which oversees and advocates minority health issues nationally and internationally.
Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from the 30th district of Texas, won re-election for a seventh term. Congresswoman Johnson received her nursing preparation degree from Saint Mary's in 1955. She became the first woman and the first black to ever represent the Dallas area in Congress when she was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1992.
Two other Notre Dame graduates lost in their bids for public office. 1968 graduate and Indiana governor Joe Kernan lost to republican challenger Mitch Daniels. Kernan had taken office last year after the death of Frank O'Bannon. Indiana 2nd District Democratic candidate and double Domer Joe Donnelly lost to Republican incumbent Chris Chocola.
