Graham, who defeated Republican Steve Southerland for the District 2 House seat last November, promised voters she would vote against electing party leader Nancy Pelosi as House speaker during her campaign.

On Tuesday of last week, Graham kept that promise by voting for Democratic Rep, Jim Cooper of Tennessee.

Her supporters, for the most part were silent on the issue, but not on her next two votes.

During the campaign Graham said “our problems can’t be blamed on only Republicans or only Democrats – we need more people in both parties committed to working together and finding real solutions.”

Consisntent with this sentiment, Graham voted with Republicans earlier this week for the Keystone XL Act and changes to Afforable Health Care Act (AHCA).

On the Keystone Act, Graham said,  while drivers across North Florida are enjoying low gas prices today, energy policy must be planned with long-term goals in mind. Keystone XL will play an important role in keeping energy prices low, which benefits our country’s economy and national security.”

With regard to the changes to the AHCA,  Graham co-sponored the Save American Workers Act, which passed the House of Representatives 252-172. The legislation will replace the 30-hour definition of full-time employment imposed by the AHCA with the traditional 40-hour definition.

Grahama said “I’m for keeping the good and fixing the bad parts of Obamacare. We all agree we need to keep insurance companies from discriminating against people and we need to continue to work on lowering costs, but limiting part-time employees to less than 30 hours is more harmful than helpful for workers in North Florida. This legislation will fix that problem without repealing the good parts of healthcare reform.”

Her votes, which were consistent with Southerland’s positions, frustrated a number of supporters who took to social media to express themselves.

Jennifer Ross wrote, “Keystone TOO??? And she voted against Pelosi for leader of her own party and for the sneaky GOP undermining of the Affordable Health Care Act to hurt workers and pay off employers. All in one week. What the hell will she do to “represent” against us NEXT week?

Louise Ritchie commented, “Gwen Graham is among the Keystone friendly folks…. I didn’t support her campaign for her to do things like this.”

Brian Lee said, “I am shocked and utterly disappointed that Congresswoman Gwen Graham voted today in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline. So many energy and environmental advocates that I know in Leon County spent so much time and energy working to elect her, and she votes like Southerland would have.”

And Tom Baxter wrote,  “I voted against Southerland, but I had no illusions about Graham. I wonder if/when she’ll ever cast a vote that Southerland wouldn’t.”

But Stephen Hodges tried to explain the votes to her supporters by commenting, “it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s anti-environment, but if she wants to be a player–and an ineffective elected official does no one any good–she’s going to have to triangulate and prove that she’s independent. Hence, her vote against Pelosi. In this political environment, an ideologically pure candidate cannot be elected from the left side of the aisle, and even if they were elected, they would be marginalized immediately.”

Over 249, 000 votes were cast in the contest.

With such a narrow loss, the second-guessing by Southerland supporters about what could have been done to change the outcome will go on for sometime.

In an exclusive analysis, Tallahassee Reports looked at the results in Leon and Bay County to determine what was different in this race when compared with the two prior victories by Southerland over Alan Boyd in 2010 and Al Lawson in 2012.

Leon County

Leon County contains the largest block of votes in District 2. In 2014, the voters in Leon County accounted for 41% of the total vote. The next largest block of votes in District 2 came from Bay County, which made up 22% of the vote.

For the Southerland campaign, it has never been about winning the vote in Leon County. This was never going to happen given that Republicans are out numbered by Democrats by a 2-1 margin.

Instead, it was about getting enough votes so that the deficit in Leon County could be made up in the more conservative parts of the sprawling congressional district.

When campaigning in Leon County, Southerland and his staff would let their supporters know they needed to get about 37%-38 of the vote.

As the table below shows,  Southerland reached this threshold in his victories in 2010 and 2012, but came up short in 2014.

[table id=17 /]

If Southerland would have reached the 37% threshold in Leon County in 2014 he he would of won the race.

A 1.7% increase in Southerland’s share of the vote in Leon County would have resulted in a 3,400 vote swing, just enough for victory.

Was Southerland’s lower take of the Leon vote due to lower Republican voter turn out? In part, but not completely.

In the 2010 mid-term election, Republican turn out in Leon County was 67.0% and Democrat turn out was 60.2%. In 2014, Republican turn out was down to 63.7% and Democrat turn-out was down to 59.1%

The difference in Republican turn-out between 2010 and 2014 would have still left Southerland about 1,400 votes short of victory, assuming Southerland would have captured all Republican votes.

For victory,  Southerland would have needed Republican turn-out to be right at 70% in Leon County.

What the numbers show is that Gwen Graham was able to capitalize on her ties to Leon County significantly more than Southerland’s previous competitors, Boyd and Lawson.

In 2010 Boyd received 58.3% of the Leon vote while Lawson garnered 61.7% of the vote. Graham captured 64.7%.

Ultimately, this means that Southerland had less support in Leon County that he had in previous elections.

This coupled with the fact that Leon County’s share of the vote for District 2 increased from 36.4% in 2010 to 41.8% in 2014, provided a significant obstacle to Southerland’s campaign.

But could the campaign make up the difference in Bay County, the place the Southerland family has called home for generations.

Bay County

The chart shows that in two previous victories, Bay County delivered 72% of their vote to Steve Southerland. However, in 2014 this number fell to 69.8%.

[table id=18 /]

Clearly, this fall off in Southerland’s backyard raises important questions about the campaign. But what was the impact? Could Southerland have won with the 72.7% of the vote he received in Bay County in 2012? The answer is yes.

At that level, the vote swing would have been approximately 3,200 votes and would have resulted in a narrow Southerland victory.

This analysis shows that Steve Southerland could have been re-elected if he would have performed at previous levels in either Leon or Bay County.

Given the fact that the challenger, Gwen Graham, was from Leon County, easily explains the difference in Leon County from previous races.

However, the fall off in Bay County – considered home base for Southerland – is more difficult to explain.