What has Obama done to Democrats in state legislatures? Prior to 2008 to after 2014

With Obama as president Republicans have more than doubled the number of state legislatures that they control.  Interestingly, the 2012 election didn't slow this trend.

Prior to the 2008 election
Republicans in control of 14 legislatures (15 with Nebraska, which is technically non-partisan but is actually controlled by Republicans)
Obama's election in 2008 had impact on the number of legislatures controlled by Republicans, but Democrats did pick up four legislatures.

Prior to the 2010 midterm election (data from NCSL.org)
Republicans in control of 14 legislatures (15 with Nebraska, which is technically non-partisan but is actually controlled by Republicans)

After the 2010 midterm election
Republicans in control of 21 legislatures (22 with Nebraska).

Prior to the 2012 election
Republicans in control of 26 legislatures (27 with Nebraska)

After the 2014 election

Republicans in control of 30 legislature  (31 with Nebraska)

To put it differently, while Democrats controlled 23 legislatures prior to 2008, they now control 11.  Over that same time Republicans went from 14 to 30.

Yet more Moderate Democrats becoming Republicans

Even more politicians switch from being Democrats to Republicans.

Reporting from Atlanta-- For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
But after his party's midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia's Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans.
Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative "blue dog" Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into voting for it.
Bell's defection is one of dozens by state and local Democratic officials in the Deep South in recent months that underscore Republicans' continued consolidation of power in the region — a process that started with presidential politics but increasingly affects government down to the level of dogcatcher.
"I think the midterms showed you really can't be a conservative and be a member of the Democratic Party," Bell said.
Since the midterm election, 24 state senators and representatives have made the switch in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Texas.
In some cases, the ramifications have been profound: In Louisiana, defecting Democrats gave Republicans a majority in the state House for the first time since Reconstruction; in Alabama, they delivered the GOP a House supermajority. Republicans have 65 votes to the Democrats' 39, enough to pass constitutional amendments over Democratic opposition.
The trend continued through late January — when nine officials in Lamar County in northeastern Texas left the Democratic Party — and into last week, when Louisiana Atty. Gen. James D. "Buddy" Caldwell switched parties, leaving the GOP in control of every major state office in Baton Rouge. . . .

"Skipping Cell Phones Skews Polls to GOP"

I think that I already assumed that this was the case, but it is useful to have in confirmed. Still a five percentage point adjustment factor is a useful rough number to have (it will obviously vary some race to race).

Republicans received a boost over Democrats in landline-only telephone polls, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Polls this fall that reached only landline phone numbers ended up giving Republicans an extra five percentage points compared with polls that dialed both landline and mobile phones, the study concluded. Pew said that’s because almost a quarter of U.S. homes don’t have a landline telephone number, and cell phone users tend to be younger and more Democratic. . . .

For instance, Pew’s final generic ballot survey of the fall had Republicans up 51% to 39% among voters reached by landline, double the 48% to 42% lead in a sample that included cell phone respondents.

Top RNC aide resigns, claiming that Steele has done great damage to Republican Party

A copy of the letter is available here. He suggests that Steele's behavior resulted in the Republican wins being much more limited than they could have been.

“In the last two non-presidential cycles of 2002 and 2006, the RNC raised $284 million and $243 million respectively. “So far this cycle, the RNC has reported raising just $170 million. Less than $18 million (10.53%) of that total came from contributions of $1,000 or more, collected from a mere 5,379 donors. This is a fraction of either the previous cycles.” . . .

Alaska: Joe Miller in the lead with absentee ballots still to count?

If Politico's report is correct, Miller looks to be ahead of Murkowski in the vote count.

Murkowski’s campaign touted they had a grand total of 85,756 votes – including challenged but counted votes – and were only 1,761 votes behind Republican Joe Miller with thousands of absentee and write-in ballots yet to be opened and counted.

“The ballots that could still come in from overseas will number in the hundreds and not in the thousands. So, if Joe Miller were to close the gap, it would have to come tomorrow,” said Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney. “After tomorrow’s absentee count, we should have close to a final picture on this election.”

With 87,517 votes in the bank, Miller’s campaign pointed out that he is leading even if all of the contested ballots are added to Murkowski’s totals. Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto pointed out in a press release that already counted absentee ballots have skewed in their favor in the Senate race.

“If previous trends hold for the absentee ballot count, it is possible for Joe to gain as many as 1,000 votes against Lisa Murkowski tomorrow,” said DeSoto. . . .

Update on Soros' State Secretary of State process

So how is Soros doing in getting State Secretary of States who are sympathetic to groups such as ACORN doing? See here.

Comparing this election to the 1974 Post-Watergate election

From the National Journal:

Republicans picked up 680 seats in state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures -- the most in the modern era. To put that number in perspective: In the 1994 GOP wave, Republicans picked up 472 seats. The previous record was in the post-Watergate election of 1974, when Democrats picked up 628 seats. . . .

For details on the NCSL numbers see this. Democrats also picked up 49 seats in the House that year, though that was presumably more difficult in that they already decisively controlled the House before the election with 242 seats. They also picked up a net gain of 3 seats in the Senate.

Obama says that it isn't his policies, but his communication skills

If you needed evidence that Obama doesn't get it that people disagreed with his policies:

“I think that’s a fair argument. I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that, we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it’s a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone,” Mr. Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft in an exclusive interview set to air Sunday. . . .

The Economist understood this:

True, the president conceded that he had received a “shellacking” at the polls, and that “some election nights are more fun than others.” He accepted that the ultimate responsibility for the disappointment of voters rested with him. He claimed to be ready for compromise with the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, offering to “mix and match” ideas and, where necessary, disagree without being disagreeable. “I’ve got to do a better job, just like everybody else in Washington does,” he said. But the strenuous efforts of the White House press corps to get Mr Obama to say that his policy decisions of the past two years on health care, the stimulus package or anything else might have been mistaken came to naught. . . .

UPDATE: Obama's "tone-deaf" White House (or "sour grapes" by losing Dems?) (Alex Sink said the say comments to the Associated Press also.)

Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a “tone-deaf” Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign.

In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent’s strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state’s conservative Panhandle.

“They got a huge wake-up call two days ago, but unfortunately they took a lot of Democrats down with them,” said Sink of the White House.

She added: “They just need to be better listeners and be better at reaching out to people who are on the ground to hear about the realities of their policies as well as politics.” . . .

In a move that sounds like their rhetoric that the recession would have been even worse without the stimulus, the Obama administration says this:

White House aides and Democratic National Committee officials, however, say that without the involvement of the national party and Obama’s political arm, Organizing for America, Sink would have fared worse. . . .

At the Huffington Post:

It mystifies me how someone who seemed so tuned in to the public pulse during the campaign became so strategically tone-deaf after he was elected. I think he may have badly overestimated the meaning of the 2008 election, particularly with respect to swing independents, who were voting against Bush, more than for Obama, just as yesterday they voted against the economic situation, without understanding its sources or what would remedy it. . . .

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post discusses how Hillary Clinton would have done things differently. Many of the points raised by Milbank would have done real damage to the economy (e.g., the foreclosure moratorium), but Democrats are looking to figure out what went wrong.

All the Latino governors are Republican

New Mexico, Nevada and Puerto Rico all have Republican Latino governors.

In Texas there were a number of successes.

The list included: Larry Gonzales (House District 52), John Garza (House District 117), Jose Aliseda (House District 35), Raul Torres (House District 33), and Eva Guzman (Supreme Court Justice). Other Hispanic Republican winners included: Carlos Cascos (Cameron County Judge), Mary Louis Garcia (Tarrant County Clerk), Carlos “Charlie” Garza (State Board of Education, District 1), Angelica Hernandez (105th District Judge), Dee Margo (House District 78), Amanda Torres (Nueces County Justice of the Peace), and Lori Valenzuela (437the District Judge – Bexar County). . . .

Congressional races in Texas include:

Republican Bill Flores, a former oil and gas executive and political newcomer, handily defeated Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards, a 20-year veteran legislator who had long been a GOP target because his district generally favors Republicans. Hispanics make up more than 15% of the population in the Central Texas district.

Mr. Edwards tried to hang on to his seat by distancing himself from President Barack Obama’s polices, but ended up with only 37% of the vote to Mr. Flores’s 62%.

Another Republican Hispanic, Francisco “Quico” Canseco, unseated Democratic Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the sprawling 23rd congressional district, which includes part of San Antonio. More than half of the district’s residents are Latino, and Mr. Rodriguez had counted on their support during his six-term tenure. But he ended up with only 45% of the vote to Mr. Canseco’s 49%.

A heavily Hispanic House district in South Texas that includes Corpus Christie appears to have voted out Democrat Solomon Ortiz, who has been in office since 1982 and was considered relatively safe. R. Blake Farenthold, a Republican, was leading by less than a percentage point Wednesday with all precincts reporting; Mr. Ortiz has not conceded the race or contested its results. . . .

Other wins include:

On the congressional side, Jamie Herrera will become the first Latino congressman from Washington state, while Raul Labrador will be the first from Idaho. House Democrats were defeated by Latino Republicans such as Francisco Canseco, who beat Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, an 11-year House veteran. Also in Florida, state representative David Rivera beat Democrat Joe Garcia, a former Obama administration energy official, to capture an open House seat — one of the few nationwide that Democrats had hoped to pick up. . . . .

Fourteen black Republicans were on House ballots nationwide, almost double the number in 2008. Insurance company owner Tim Scott will be the first black Republican to represent South Carolina in the U.S. House since Reconstruction, and in Florida, veteran Allen West ousted a two-term Democrat to a House seat. He will become Florida's first black Republican in Congress since the 1870s. . . .

Vote problems, possibly miscounting, in Connecticut?

The AP has a lot different vote count than the "official count."

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said that Malloy won by an unofficial margin of 3,100 votes — and that state law allows recounts in statewide races only when the margin is lower than 2,000 votes.

But the Associated Press said late Wednesday night that its vote count now shows Foley with a lead of 8,424 votes over Malloy, with all but 1.5 percent of the precincts counted. Based on that count, the AP said, it was withdrawing its call of Malloy as the winner.

Bysiewicz did not reveal the exact totals for the candidates in each town, saying they would not be available until today.

Adding to the controversy, Foley said Wednesday that he was forming a transition team to smooth the way for taking office — on the same day Malloy announced his own transition team.

Despite Foley's actions, Malloy told reporters several times at the state Capitol that he is confident he will be sworn in as the next governor on Jan. 5.

"I'm standing by those numbers," Malloy said, adding that he believes he won by more than 11,000 votes. "I'm confident that will stand up."

Casting further doubt on the numbers, political insiders said Wednesday night that the vote counts for Malloy in Bridgeport and New Haven could have been too high by thousands of votes — meaning that Foley could have scored better in those Democratic-dominated cities than previously believed.

Malloy campaign manager Dan Kelly responded to the AP numbers late Wednesday: "We are aware what the AP is reporting, and we're confident they're wrong. Their numbers for New Haven are wrong, and they're leaving out a significant number of votes in Bridgeport." . . .

UPDATE: More chaos in Connecticut. it is interesting that Democrats warned Republicans about these found ballots. It doesn't sound as if all the Democrats were happy with this possible cheating.

In what has become one of the stranger twists in an already bizarre Governor's race, a bag of uncounted ballots was found in Bridgeport Thursday night.

Republican officials were approached by Democratic operatives and told about the surprise ballot bag, according to Bridgeport GOP Chairman Marc Delmonico.

Delmonico said Democrats asked to have several people deputized to count the uncounted ballots, but Republicans objected, claiming that wasn't proper procedure in the vote-counting process.

Instead the GOP asked police to take custody of the bag of ballots until the matter could be sorted out. . . .

Health care, terrorism and exit polls

Democrats may not want to believe that Obamacare cost them seats, but the exit polls show something quite different. From the WSj's Political Diary:

Surveys of voters taken as they left their polling place found that 48% favored wholesale repeal of ObamaCare, including nearly a quarter of Democrats. A full 36% of those Democrats broke against their party and voted for GOP candidates. "To a lot of folks, it was a symbol of government [out of control]," said Jack Beattie, a Florida-based pollster for Democrats.

Bailouts also proved both unpopular and a drag on Democrats. When asked who they primarily blamed for the financial crisis, the three out of ten voters who blamed the Bush administration overwhelmingly voted for Democratic candidates (85% to 13%). The quarter of voters who blamed President Obama voted 91% for Republicans. Republicans also carried a 56% majority of the 35% of voters who primarily faulted Wall Street.

The Yemen terrorist plots that broke last week made an impression on the electorate. A full 9% of those questioned by exit pollsters said it was the most important issue determining their vote. They broke 55% to 42% in favor of Democratic candidates, a rallying-around-the-flag response that often benefits the party in power. Without the terror incident, Democrats might have taken an even bigger beating yesterday. . . .

A Democrat Pollster saying how Obama could benefit generally from a terrorist attack.



The Hill newspaper has a provocative headline: "Few Democrats survive healthcare vote."

one of 77 "yes" vote seats in play Tuesday evening. . . .

Within hours, a dozen members had lost reelection, including four freshmen elected in the 2008 Democratic wave: Reps. Tom Perriello and Glenn Nye of Virgina and Suzanne Kosmas and Alan Grayson of Florida.

They weren't alone: Democratic Reps. Baron Hill (Ind.), Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.) and Allen Boyd (Fla.) quickly joined them. So did Pennsylvania Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper, Chris Carney and Paul Kanjorski, all of whom were main targets of the anti-abortion-rights group the Susan B. Anthony List.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who voted for the bill when her vote was crucial but later voted no on reconciliation, was also defeated.

The trend is even worse when factoring in yes votes who weren't running for reelection.

Retiring Rep. Bart Gordon (Tenn.) left Democratic candidate Brett Carter to get pulverized by Republican Diane Black, 29.3 percent to 67.5.

Democrats did, however, pick up Republican Rep. Joseph Cao's seat in Louisiana. Cao had voted yes on the bill in November — the only Republican to do so — but changed his vote when the bill returned before the House in March.

Suspiciously, Cook County is late during in votes for Illinois Governor's race

This is all one really needs to know about how elections work in Illinois.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Quinn was leading Brady by just 8,400 votes out of more than 3.6 million cast. However, the Quinn campaign said most of the outstanding ballots were from the Democratic-leaning Cook County. . . .

Republicans pick up a lot of state legislatures

From the National Conference of State Legislatures:

Republicans made huge gains in state legislative races and are at their highest point since 1928.
The Alabama House and Senate, Indiana House, Iowa House, Maine House and Senate, Michigan House, Minnesota House and Senate, Montana House, New Hampshire House and Senate, North Carolina House and Senate, Ohio House--a big redistricting win--the Pennsylvania House, and the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate all have flipped from Democrat to Republican.
This is the first time in Alabama that Republicans have controlled the legislature since reconstruction. The North Carolina Senate has not been Republican since 1870. And Republicans have reportedly taken over 100 seats in the New Hampshire House. For the first time in history, the Minnesota Senate will be controlled by the GOP. . . .

From Fox News:

GOPAC pegs the party's chamber pickups at about 23. . . . The party picked up 20 chambers in the 1994 election . . . Overall, more than 6,100 state legislative seats were up for grabs in 46 states. Republican state legislative candidates made a net gain of more than 500 seats on Tuesday, giving them more seats than at any time since 1928, according to the NCSL. . . .

Republicans now make up more than half the legislators in the country. In the various state Houses, Democrats have slid from about 56 percent down to 43 percent.

Here is what the map looks like now.

Below is the legislative makeup before the election. This pickup of at least 675 seats has made a big difference.

The changes in state legislatures can be seen here.

Combine the state legislatures with the new governorship map. It looks like you will be able to add Oregon. Connecticut, and Maine to the Republican totals.


By my rough count the Republicans control the state legislatures and governorship in 20 states (including Nebraska where the state legislature is technically nonpartisan). As of this moment, there look to be only six states where Democrats clearly control the state legislatures and governorships in states, though that could increase will Illinois and Washington. It also depends on how one counts Rhode Island with Calfee.
There will be a lot of reforms that will now get passed. For example, it seems likely that Wisconsin will pass a right-to-carry law.

UPDATE: A number of state legislators have switched parties since the election, at least 18 in the South and one each in Maine and South Dakota.

"Shocking" loss of longtime Missouri congressman Democrat Ike Skelton

Exit Polls from Election

The Associated Press has this:

Voters say the economy eclipses any other issue.
About a third say their household suffered a job loss in the past two years, but that didn't give a clear direction to their voting. They divided over which party to support in Tuesday's House races.
About four in 10 say they are worse off financially than they were two years ago. More than 80 percent said they were worried about the direction of the economy over the next year.
Only about a quarter of voters in Tuesday's House races blamed Obama for the nation's economic troubles. But about half think Obama's policies will hurt the country.
About four out of 10 voters said they support the tea party movement, and they overwhelmingly voted Republican.
The preliminary results are from interviews that Edison Research conducted for The Associated Press and television networks with more than 11,000 voters nationwide. This included 9,525 interviews Tuesday in a random sample of 268 precincts nationally. In addition, landline and cellular telephone interviews were conducted Oct. 22-31 with 1,600 people who voted early or absentee. . . .

ABC News has this:

Preliminary exit poll results underscore the economic distress defining the 2010 election. Eighty-eight percent of voters today say the national economy's in bad shape, nearly as many as the record 92 percent who said so two years ago. Only 14 percent say their own family's financial situation has improved since 2008. And few see much respite: Compounding the political impact of the long downturn, 86 percent remain worried about the economy's direction in the next year, including half who are "very" worried.

Indeed 29 percent say someone in their own household has lost a job in the last two years.

The economy has deeply affected the broader public mood. Sixty-two percent say the country is seriously headed on the wrong track (a record 74 percent said so in 2008, as the economy fell into the abyss). More broadly, 39 percent expect life for the next generation of Americans to be worse than it is today, vs. just 32 percent who expect it to be better. . . .

Predictions for tomorrow's results

From Scott Rasmussen:

tomorrow Republicans will send more Republicans to Congress than at any time in the past 80 years. . . . Central to the Democrats' electoral woes was the debate on health-care reform. From the moment in May 2009 when the Congressional Budget Office announced that the president's plan would cost a trillion dollars, most voters opposed it. Today 53% want to repeal it. Opposition was always more intense than support, and opposition was especially high among senior citizens, who vote in high numbers in midterm elections.

Gallup

Gallup models the number of seats a party will control based on that party's share of the national two-party vote for the House of Representatives, using historical voting data in midterm elections from 1946 to 2006. The model takes into account the majority party in Congress entering the elections.

Gallup's historical model suggests that a party needs at least a two-point advantage in the national House vote to win a majority of the 435 seats. The Republicans' current likely voter margin suggests that this scenario is highly probable, making the question of interest this election not whether the GOP will win the majority, but by how much. Taking Gallup's final survey's margin of error into account, the historical model predicts that the Republicans could gain anywhere from 60 seats on up, with gains well beyond that possible.

It should be noted, however, that this year's 15-point gap in favor of the Republican candidates among likely voters is unprecedented in Gallup polling and could result in the largest Republican margin in House voting in several generations. This means that seat projections have moved into uncharted territory, in which past relationships between the national two-party vote and the number of seats won may not be maintained.

Additionally, efforts by state legislatures in recent years have attempted to insulate incumbent members of Congress from strong partisan tides such as are in force this year. Congressional district lines have been drawn to make them safe for specific parties, which may reduce the impact of national trends on election outcomes. . . .

What are Democrat political consultants saying about Tuesday off the record?

This from Politico:

While few will say so on the record for fear of alienating party officials or depressing turnout, every one of nearly a dozen Democratic House consultants and political strategists surveyed expect a GOP majority to be elected Tuesday — the consensus was that Democrats would lose somewhere between 50 and 60 seats.

A senior party consultant who was on the low end with his predictions said the party would lose between 40 and 50 seats. On the high end, one Democratic consultant said losses could number around 70 seats. . . .

“Everybody that is tied will lose, and everyone that is ahead by a few points will lose because of the GOP wave,” said one party media consultant who is involved in a wide array of House races. “There are going to be some surprises.” . . .

But others say the electoral map hardened this spring, after the House passed a health care bill that remains deeply unpopular among voters. Democratic campaign officials say it is no accident that there are few Democrats in moderate-to-conservative districts who have promoted their support for the health care measure on the campaign trail, and most don’t even acknowledge it. . . .

Media bias in Alaska Senate Race

GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller is smart and actually understands the constitution. Yet, the attacks on him have been as vicious as any by the media on any candidate. If this tape between two CBS reporters had gotten out a week ago, it could have made a big difference in the race, but I am not sure whether this has enough time to really sink in.

Employees at a CBS affiliate in Anchorage left an accidental voicemail for an aide to GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller in which they discussed and laughed about the possibility of reporting on the appearance of sex offenders at a Miller rally. And they chatted about responding with a Twitter alert to “any sort of chaos whatsoever” including the candidate being “punched.”

Jerry Bever, general manager for KTVA, said in a statement that a call to Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto to discuss the candidate’s planned appearance on a newscast wasn’t disconnected after the conversation ended. The call took place during a KTVA staff meeting to plan coverage of that evening’s Miller rally in downtown Anchorage. . . .

On Sunday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fumed about the KTVA recording during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. She told host Chris Wallace that Mr. Miller “has had to put up with up against the GOP machine and the Democrats and the liberal media in Alaska. It’s no wonder that the numbers are tightening in that race.” She also said, “We have the tape, Chris, and I can’t wait till it busts out all over the nation to show what it is that we — kind of what I put up with for two years now with the media — but what Joe Miller is faced with in dealing with somebody who feels — Lisa Murkowski – so entitled to that seat that she and some of her people, including some complicits in the media, will do anything. They will stop at nothing…” . . .

Here is a copy of the tape:



The CBS station has this response:

“The perception that this garbled, out of context recording may leave is unfortunate, but to allege that our staff was discussing or planning to create or fabricate stories regarding candidate Miller is absurd,” he said. “The complete conversation was about what others might be able to do to cause disruption within the Miller campaign, not what KTVA could do.”

OK, people will have to listen to this over a minute discussion actually implies, but 1) the male reporter is recorded as saying "We need to find that one person" referring to them finding a child molester at the campaign event, 2) the female reporter says "The one thing we can do is . . . ," and 3) they never once mention someone else doing this. This is clearing the media talking about what they can do to create a story to harm Miller.

New Fox News piece: If Republicans Win Big on Tuesday, Stocks Will Go Up

My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:

The economic outlook is bleak. Businesses aren't hiring and the economy has lost 400,000 jobs since May. Unemployment has remained at least at 9.5 percent for 14 months, A record length of high unemployment not encountered since the Great Depression. GDP is growing but the growth is slowing. Consumer confidence is falling; the dollar is falling; the real estate market remains in a slump. And the Obama administration has overseen the 2009 and 2010 deficits at unprecedented levels, accumulating over $2.7 trillion during just two years.

Still, investors sense a glimmer of hope, reflected in rising stock prices. Stock prices have much more to do with long-term expectations of profitability than short-run results. This new optimism likely reflects the rapidly changing political outlook. Stockholders have already been anticipating higher taxes and health care regulations under an Obama administration with basically free rein to adopt whatever economic policy that they want. Now, with Republican victories likely on Tuesday, particularly in the House, predictions are for a more favorable business environment and better economy.

While it is all very intuitively plausible, hard numbers also back up this discussion. . . .

The day of the election: "Expectation of Republican win lifts Wall Street."
The day after the election: "Dow Climbs to Highest Since Lehman, 30-Year Bond Slides on Fed."

This chart from Intrade at 3:50 on Tuesday, pretty much shows that the 60+ win in the house was already anticipated by the afternoon on election day.


The Republicans actually did slightly worse in the Senate that expectations. This chart for the Senate is from Intrade at 3:50 on Tuesday.

A note on Intrade probabilities for the control of the House and Senate

For the Senate, Intrade predicts that there is a better than even chance that Republicans will at least get tied control -- that means they are expected to pick up at least 9 seats. As of 5 PM, there is a 43.5 percent probability that Republicans will get 50 seats. There was also a 12.8 percent chance of them getting more than 50 seats. Taken together and adjusting for the fact that the probabilities add up to more than 100 percent, there is a 53.5 percent probability of Republicans picking up at least 9 seats. In the House, there is a 47 percent probability that the Republicans will pick up at least 60 seats and a 69 percent probability of picking up at least 55 seats.