Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of members of the United States House of Representatives who served a single term

List of members of the United States House of Representatives who served a single term

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Delete !votes were mostly WP:NOTARG, keep !votes both a majority and demonstrating much stronger arguments for notability and encyclopedic value. (non-admin closure) Vaticidalprophet (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2021 (UTC)


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No sources present this as a notable grouping as required by WP:LISTN. This also fails WP:NOTDIR, specifically #6, refers to "non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations". There are no sources that indicate that single-term members are unique, and given that swing districts do swing back and forth from cycle to cycle (as we saw in some seats from 2018 to 2020), I doubt that there is much coverage given to it. WP:BEFORE yielded nothing to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:38, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:38, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 01:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep, this would seem to satisfy WP:LISTPURP as a relevant index and informational source. Contra the nom, the numbers of one-term Representatives are clearly quite a small fraction of the total membership of each Congress (under 4% in the one just concluding). While I don't think LISTN is helpful or necessarily relevant here, there is definitely plenty of coverage on the effect of incumbency on a politician's chances of reelection. I also disagree that this is a "cross-categorization" in the way the nom or NOTDIR suggests, because it is not intersecting something unrelated but is instead focusing on a subset of the group based on a shared fact specifically intrinsic to belonging to that group. postdlf (talk) 18:26, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , how is LISTN not relevant for the discussion of the notability of a list? That's what determines if this is really "relevant", as you say, or not. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * LISTN is sufficient to satisfy notability for a list page, but not necessary. This subgroup is not unusual or inobvious so I don't think LISTN has anything useful to add. postdlf (talk) 21:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Leaning keep. Even in swing districts, it seems to be fairly uncommon for a Representative to be elected for just one term, ever. I can definitely see this as a topic of academic interest. I would actually be interested in a comparable list of Representatives who have served non-consecutive terms in the House (or the Senate). BD2412  T 18:33, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , it seems pretty common to me. This past election, Gil Cisneros, TJ Cox, Joe Cunningham, Abby Finkenauer, Kendra Horn, Ben McAdams, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Denver Riggleman, Max Rose, Harley Rouda, Ross Spano, Xochitl Torres Small, and Steve Watkins all lost reelection, to say nothing of Katie Hill or Anthony Brindisi, whose race isn't called. I don't see any sourcing on this indicating that they have entered a notable group of one-term representatives. Looking at the list from previous congresses, quite a few have huge groups of one-term members. Swing districts swing back and forth. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete This was a very common occurance for most of US history, it is not in the full historic scheme worth creating a list of. Even in fairly recent times, like the 1964 election, 33 of those elected newly would not be elected again the next term.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:48, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 33 out of 435 is not "very common". If you mean that there are always one-term congressmen who are not reelected, yes that may happen every election, but it's still a small percentage of the whole each time and begs the question as to why them, when well over 90% are reelected. postdlf (talk) 21:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 20:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep for reasons listed by Postdlf and BD2412. Paintspot Infez (talk) 21:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per postdlf. I'm in favor of a "big encyclopedia" -- insofar as if something doesn't harm the project, it should stay. The presence of this list doesn't harm the project of Wikipedia, and thusly should stay. I would also note that this has ultimate come down to a semantic discussion -- the nominator appears to think X number of freshman congresspeople losing re-election out of Y freshman congresspeople makes it a common occurrence, and therefore the list should be deleted. I disagree. MAINEiac4434 (talk) 02:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, per nom, as an unencyclopedic cross-categorization. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 21:39, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Question -- this article was nominated eight days ago, and only has six comments either way. Assuming no other comments, when would this discussion be closed? MAINEiac4434 (talk) 02:40, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Going by which way the wind is blowing, let's say right now. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.