Democrats Surge in State Legislatures

[skipos]

By my initial count, Democrats netted 264 pick-ups in state Houses and 59 pick-ups in state Senates. Republican pick-ups? A lowly nine in state House races and just eight in state Senate races. Democrats won enough seats to take control of the following chambers: the Indiana House, the New Hampshire House and Senate, the Iowa House and Senate, the Minnesota House, the Michigan House, the Wisconsin House, and the Oregon House.

http://swingstateproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=80

[WCGreen]

1. This is a great first step toward redrawing districts after

the 2010 census...

[Ravy]

4. Why wait until the census? (nt)

[WCGreen]

6. Cause that is the way it is usually done....

Unless you are republicans....

[trogdor]

10. Aravosis says demonstrate why this is stupid.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/even-in-victory-american-people-can-be.html

He was mostly talking about Iraq, but it fits here. Create the most aggressively insidious gerrymander possible, and don't even give the excuse about judicial fiat that Tom DeLay did. No, this is a baldly political initiative designed to squeeze the last N Republicans out of office in '08.

See how long it takes for the Republicans to go crying to the Supreme Court. You know they will.

[madfloridian]

2. Yes! Building a farm team and protecting the vote....

That has been Dean's goal since 2004. When he started DFA that was what he wanted to accomplish.

[nicknameless]

3. Very good news.

Except 9 and 8 sound suspiciously high. ;)

[The Deacon]

5. 50 STATE STRATEGY! 50 STATE STRATEGY! 50 STATE STRATEGY!

[Zodiak]

7. Dean is awesome

[Spiffarino]

13. Damn straight it's the 50-state strategy!

@%$#%# DLC needs to STFU and get on the bandwagon now.

[fujiyama]

8. Wow! Republicans won just 18 state seats nationwide?

THat's a fuckin' blowout in many respects.

[Bucky]

11. Not won, but added net pick ups. It's a weird statistic.

If you follow the link youll see the number is a summation of the net gains and losses by state. So if in Arkansas, for instance, if the Republicans swung four Democratic seats in the lower House to their side, but the Democrats swung seven GOP seats to the Democrat side, then we only netted a three-seat gain. You get a wrong impression of what happened if you oversimplify these stats.

Another thing distorting this picture is that state legislative districts are of different sizes from state to state. Dinky little New Hampshire has the largest state House, with a stunning 390 seats--almost as big as the US House. Democrats netted a 84 seat pick up there, but if their state House was closer to the the average size for a legislative lower chamber, about 130 seats, that would come out to only a (still very impressive) 28 seat gain.

The overall trend was pretty strongly for the Democrats, but it wasn't a blow out by any reasonable measure.

[fujiyama]

15. Thanks for putting it into perspective

[Vinca]

9. There was an article in our local paper that said New Hampshire

hadn't gone Democratic in the state legislature since 1912. The elected Dems. had been out so long they weren't really sure how to proceed. We're fast learners.:woohoo:

[Conker]

12. DLCC.org (Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee) has a full map of the results.

http://www.dlcc.org/index.php

[bobbieinok]

14. in OK, repubs picked up 2 state senators

OK senate now 50-50; first time since statehood (1907) republicans got so many.

An OK democrat (a woman) became lt gov (before it was a republican woman). So she gets to cast the deciding vote.

I read somewhere post election that OK was the ONLY state in which republicans gained state legislative seats.

And I moved back to OK in 89 after 20 years in IA!?!?!?!?!?

[NoPasaran]

16. In Texas we picked up five seats in the house Tuesday

Plus one more in a special election last spring. We now only trail by six seats (of 150)in the lower house.

[AwakeAtLast]

17. I'm in Indiana, and I can no longer call it a Red state!

In my city, only one Repuke won their local seat. I only know of two or three who won in other locals.

I never thought I would live to see the day in this state.

Too bad Daniels wasn't up for reelection this time, we would have a new Dem. Governor, too! Oh, well, he will be out soon enough!

:bounce: