Republican Larry Bucshon has won southwestern Indiana's 8th Congressional District, giving the GOP a U.S. House seat that Democrats have held the last four years.

Bucshon defeated Democratic state Rep. Trent Van Haaften to win the seat that Democrat Brad Ellsworth gave up to run unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate.

Bucshon is a heart surgeon from Newburgh and was a first-time candidate. He narrowly won the Republican primary in May with 33 percent of the vote, just ahead of a tea party favorite.

National Republicans had targeted the district as one to recapture since it was in GOP hands until Ellsworth unseated Republican John Hostettler in 2006.