Everyone reading this probably knows by now that the Republicans had extremely large gains yesterday in the House and did quite well also in the Senate. The GOP also picked up a large number of key governorships. One thing that often gets overlooked, however, is the massive Republican gains in state legislative seats. It now appears that the Republicans flipped at least 17 and possibly three more legislative chambers from the Democrats' control. States like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are now totally in GOP hands. In fact, even with the loss of the California governor's race, the GOP will still control the redistricting of a great many more seats than the Democrats, the first time that will be true since the 1920's. what this means is that after decades of gerrymandering by the Democrats to help their congressional candidates, the advantage will instead go the the Republicans. This could mean on average another 7 to 10 seats for the Republicans in the House for the next decade. Coupling this with the decennial reapportionment which looks likely to give the GOP an extra 5 seats, one finds that the GOP just got a big advantage towards keeping a lock on the House for the next ten years.
Anther key factor that needs to be understood after yesterday's victory is this: In the next two cycles, there are many more Democrats than Republicans up for re-election in the Senate. This does not mean that the Republicans will necessarily pick up seats in those cycles, but it certainly helps on that front. If Democrats are defending two seats for each on the Republicans have to defend, there is a much greater potential for losses in the Senate by them.
Everything considered, yesterdays results are a smashing victory by the GOP. They are also an extraordinary rebuke to President Obama and the Obamacrats.
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