Let's see, Bachmann ran about even with her district's PVI. If every Pubbie ran even with their PVI, that would mean the Dems would win the generic vote by about 5%. That is not a good number in a GOP wave election. If you compared GOP incumbent.s performance to their district's PVI, Bachmann this year must be close to the bottom. That might be why she got a cool reception: she is toxic with the swing voters needed to win POTUS, or for that matter, winning Congress. If everyone ran as well as Bachmann vis a vis their district's PVI, it is problematical if the GOP would even have taken the House this year.
As a result of the packing of Dem voters, there are 234 GOP PVI districts, 9 ties, and 201 Dem PVIs. This House election was unusual in that PVI was a pretty good predictor of the result (not in all cases, obviously).
A R+1 PVI doesn't mean a district is Republican leaning in the abstract. It means that the district is one point more Republican-leaning than the average of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential votes. Obama won by more than Bush, meaning a an R+1 PVI district actually leaned toward the Democrats, on average, in the past two presidential elections.
So what this means is that Republicans have a structural advantage. In a 50-50 election, Republicans would presumably win a majority.
