But why? West was a tremendous asset.
He was great — but an outspoken conservative is apparently not what the Florida GOP wanted in its delegation, nor did the national GOP want him in the House.
So his district was butchered beyond recognition and he chose to seek re-election in a newly-drawn 18th district which (being mainly new territory, though ostensibly more Republican than his butchered ex-district) robbed him of the advantages of incumbency.
For their part in the elimination of West, the Democrats made sure that their candidate was just about the #1 best-funded candidate for a House race nationwide that year. It worked, with probably more than a little bit of help from Democrat vote fraud in St. Lucie County.