The Texas 22 nd Congressional District covers a south-central portion of the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area. It includes the cities of Rosenberg and La Marque as well as portions of Missouri City and Pearland, in Fort Bend, Harris, Galveston, and Brazoria counties. The district is going for election to be held in year 2008. The district which is known for its strong republican stronghold has a Democrat as Incumbent. It is currently represented by Nick Lampson.
The district takes in several wealthy and conservative suburbs south of Houston, including Sugar Land, Pasadena, Pearland, and the Clear Lake area of Houston. Texas 22 nd Congressional District also includes the NASA Johnson Space Center and Ellington Field. The 22nd had long been considered a solidly Republican district, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+15. A Democratic presidential candidate had not carried the district since Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election, Democrats hadn’t held the congressional seat since after the 1978 election (Ron Paul had held the seat as an independent before DeLay took over in 1985). Traditionally, among districts in the Houston area, only the 7th District was considered more Republican. The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States of America, along with the Democratic Party. It is often referred to as the Grand Old Party or the GOP
Conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote in May 2007 that he believes there are at least a few House seats that were won by Democrats in 2006 ‘solely because of GOP corruption,’ and that such seats would be ‘the most likely to return to the Republican column in 2008.’ He qualifies this by noting that in previous elections, major House gains by either party have always been followed by losses in the next election. But he says that the presence of the US troops continuing in Iraq can be bad news for the Republicans in Washington.