They voted for the health care bill. With enough money behind the opposition, could they be voted out of office next year?

Republicans aim to find out with a new effort to raise campaign funds for challengers to two dozen House Democrats who voted for the health care bill earlier this month.

Reverse The Vote Victory Committee was established this week with the Federal Election Commission as a joint fundraising committee that will collect contributions to distribute among 24 GOP challengers.

It's still months until the first nominees will be formally selected in primary elections, so the committee for the time being will give campaign funds to 24 separate "congressional victory committees" that in turn will deliver the funds to party nominees once they are determined.

Four out of every five House members who didn't side with their party on the health care bill represent districts that voted for the opposite party's presidential nominee in the 2008 election.

The party-buckers on the 220-215 vote on Saturday night included 39 Democrats who voted against the bill. Of them, 31 represent districts that voted for John McCain over Barack Obama. Republicans are targeting many of them for defeat in the 2010 election. Of the other eight, three are serving their first terms in districts in which they defeated or succeeded Republicans in the 2008 election.

Eighteen Democrats from McCain-voting districts backed the bill. Among this subset, seven-term Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas represents the most pro-McCain district (59 percent). He's more politically secure than other "McCain Democrats" who voted for the bill, including first-term Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia and second-term Rep. Zack Space of Ohio.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. swung through Ohio Monday to tout the Obama administration's economic policy and to raise money for three junior House Democrats who should face challenging re-election campaigns next year.

In the morning, Biden headlined a Columbus fundraiser for Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, whose likely 2010 opponent is former state Sen. Steve Stivers, the same Republican Kilroy narrowly defeated last year in an open-seat race in the 15th District.

According to a press pool report, Biden characterized Kilroy as a partner in the administration' effort to revitalize Ohio's economy. Kilroy in February was one of 246 House members, all Democrats, who voted for the economic recovery plan, which Biden said has provided needed relief to Ohio eight months after President Obama signed it into law.

Ohio Democratic Reps. John Boccieri and Zack Space, both targets of comeback-minded Republican strategists in the 2010 election, will be raising money jointly later this month.

The Ohio Victory Fund was recently organized with the Federal Election Commission as a joint fundraising committee that will divide its receipts among the Boccieri and Space campaigns.

The committee was set up to accommodate contributions linked to a Boccieri-Space fundraising event later this month that will be headlined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Cleveland Plain Dealer said that the fundraiser will be held Oct. 26 in Cleveland, which is north of Boccieri’s Canton-based 16th and Space’s mostly rural 18th in east-central and south-central Ohio.

Boccieri is seeking a second term and Space is seeking a third term. Both men easily won their 2008 races and are among the 49 House Democrats who were elected or re-elected in districts last year that also voted for Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

— Greg Giroux

Ohio Republican Fred Dailey is challenging two-term Democratic Rep. Zack Space in what would be a rematch of their 2008 matchup in the 18th District in eastern and south-central Ohio.

But Dailey, who won 40 percent of the vote in that race, is running in a GOP primary next May that already includes state Sen. Bob Gibbs, whose campaign has drawn praise from national Republican officials, and Jeanette Moll, a former county magistrate who lost to Dailey in the 2008 Republican primary.

Dailey said in a statement Oct. 1 that he "learned a lot in 2008" and "am much better prepared for the challenges that lie ahead." He also criticized Space's voting record, including his backing of a cap-and-trade bill that aims to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

CQ currently rates the general election race as Democratic favored.

*To see how the 2010 House races are shaping up, check out the CQ Politics' election map.

Ohio state Sen. Bob Gibbs is in the 2010 race to unseat Democratic Rep. Zack Space.

Gibbs, a Republican, recently filed a statement of candidacy and a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission to initiate a campaign in Ohio's 18th, a mostly rural and culturally conservative area of east-central and south-central Ohio that includes Zanesville and Chillicothe. Gibbs also has set up a rudimentary campaign Web site.

Gibbs was elected to the Ohio House in 2002 and served three two-year terms, then was elected to the Ohio Senate in 2008 with 59 percent of the vote in a district that includes all of Holmes, Medina and Wayne Counties and part of Ashland County.

The campaign arm of Republicans in the U.S. House is using this week's legislative recess to criticize some Democrats who backed a climate change bill the House narrowly passed last week.

The National Republican Congressional Committee's advertising campaign consists mainly of low-cost radio advertisements and telephone calls against 14 Democrats, most of them from conservative-leaning districts, who helped provide the winning 219-212 margin in the June 26 vote. Eight Republicans also backed the climate change bill, which most Republicans described as a massive "national energy tax" on consumers.

A top target of the NRCC campaign is first-term Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello, who broke with most politically vulnerable Democratic freshmen in backing the bill. The NRCC is airing a television ad in Perriello's south-central Virginia district that urges viewers to "tell him he was wrong to vote for the [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi energy tax."