Barack Obama’s coattails swept a number of GOP lawmakers from office on Tuesday, including several veterans who had been Democratic targets for years.

In Connecticut, GOP Rep. Christopher Shays was defeated after 22 years in office, while Obama’s victory in Pennsylvania may have contributed to the defeat of longtime Democratic target Rep. Phil English (R), who lost after seven terms. Obama also appeared to help candidates in Virginia, which he won, and North Carolina, where he remains ahead as of press time.

Shays was perhaps the most prominent example of Obama’s coattails. Without him, Democrat Jim Himes would not have won, according to Gary Rose, who chairs the Department of Government and Politics at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.

“Obama was the key to this election,” Rose said. “The top of the ticket was too much for Shays to handle.”

Shays’s district had been leaning Democratic for several cycles, but Shays was the ultimate survivor.

When many counted him out in 2006, he emerged for an 11th term while two fellow GOP lawmakers from his state were sent packing. On Tuesday, the last GOP House member in New England was defeated by Himes, who took 51 percent of the vote to Shays’s 48 percent. At least 75,000 additional ballots were cast in 2008 in the district compared to 2006.

Much of Himes’s victory comes from record turnout in the urban areas of the district, said John Orman, who chairs the politics department at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

“With the excitement generated by Obama there were new Democratic registrations in the district,” Orman said. He noted that the older voters in the district are used to splitting the ticket — that is, voting for the Democrat as president but Shays for the House. However, a large number of first-time voters “are not used to ticket-splitting,” Orman explained.

Obama also may have helped some Democrats survive. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Reps. John Murtha and Paul Kanjorski were both seen as in trouble, but both ended up winning in a state won handily by Obama.

In Pennsylvania, Obama won more than 250,000 votes than Kerry did four years earlier.

In Virginia, which in supporting Obama voted for a Democrat for the first time since 1964, two-term Rep. Thelma Drake (R) was defeated, and six-term Republican Virgil Goode was locked in a recount. Democrats also won an open seat in the Virginia suburbs.

While few would call Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) a political giant, she probably qualifies as the biggest GOP name to fall in Senate and House elections. Again, Obama may have made a difference.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, perennial Democratic target Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) was defeated by Larry Kissell.

Kissell almost beat Hayes in 2006 and might have beaten him this year without Obama running strong in the state. However, record turnout for Obama, particularly in parts of Charlotte that belong to the 8th district, put Kissell over the top, said Tom Jensen, the spokesman for Public Policy Polling.

“Obama coattails helped Kissell win by so much,” he said. “I think Kissell would have won without Obama … but Obama’s coattails ensured that there was no way Hayes was going to win.”

But Obama’s coattails weren’t long enough to carry every Democrat to victory. In Florida, Democrats thought they had a chance to unseat two Cuban-American Republicans, Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Instead, the two brothers won again.

In Kansas, Boyda was seen as relatively safe, but ended up losing by about 15,000 votes.

In Missouri, where the presidential race was so close it was not called as of press time (although McCain was in the lead), Republican Rep. Sam Graves won a tough battle, and so did GOPer Blaine Luetkemeyer, who won the seat vacated by Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R).

Nationwide, turnout did not appear to be much higher than in 2004, despite buzz about the 2008 electing garnering the most interest in history. Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, said that turnout was probably at the same level or slightly higher than in 2004.

“There are lots of uncounted absentee ballots in different places like Georgia, Ohio and Colorado,” Gans explained. “But no record will be set.”

He estimated that the final total, including all third-party candidates, would be between 126.5 and 128.5 million votes. If this estimate is correct, it would mean between 60.7 and 61.7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, or about the same as in 2004.

While Obama, with more than 63 million votes, has collected more than 3 million more votes than did Kerry in 2004, McCain’s 55.8 million votes pales in comparison to President Bush’s 62 million in 2004.

Some pundits speculated that weeks of polls showing Obama with a commanding lead may have discouraged some Republicans from voting. On his liberal Daily Kos website, Markos Moulitsas (also a columnist for The Hill) asked, “Could it be Republicans staying home?”

Ian Swanson contributed to this article.