The next two sections are pretty short, so I'm going to postpone putting them up until they've got some more meat. Here's some information on Congress!
--Congress in General--
The Republican Party is on life support in the entirety of the Northeast, especially New England, as far as Congress goes: as of the 111th Congress, four Republican Senators (Brown of Massachusetts, Ayotte of New Hampshire, and Collins and Snowe of Maine), the latter two of whom, up until late 2008, often voted with Democrats and were generally considered quite liberal, and absolutely no Representatives from those six states, though New York had two Republicans out of 29 seats in the House, Pennsylvania had 7 out of 19 seats, and New Jersey had 5 out of 13 seats. New York's Republicans were thus outnumbered two to one by Oklahoma's, who hold 4 of their 5 House seats. In 2010, they made major strides, and took four seats in New York, five in Pennsylvania (thus reversing the previous balance), and one in New Jersey. How many of these freshmen will survive Obama's reelection attempt is, of course, unknown, but in an even partisan atmosphere, some are bound to lose, especially since all three states are losing at least one seat after redistricting, with New York down two. In New England itself, they succeeded in taking only New Hampshire's two seats, with the other two losses from 2006 and 2008 in Connecticut staying Democratic.
Defining Texas (23), Louisiana (6), Arkansas (3), Kentucky (4), Tennessee (7), Virginia (8), North Carolina (6), South Carolina (5), Georgia (8), Mississippi (3), Alabama (6), and Florida (19) as Southern, the GOP has 98 Southern members out of 242 total in their caucus and 137 in that region. This is not a good sign. Now, it's better than after 2008, when nearly half of their caucus was Southern, but the fact remains that forty percent of the party comes from thirty-one percent of the country.
Maryland had only one Republican in Congress in 2008, though there were two in 2006 and are again in 2010; funnily enough, the one who still had his job in 2008 gained it the same way that the one who lost his did. In 1992, Beverly Byron, widely perceived as a conservative Democrat, lost the primary to represent Maryland's sixth district to a more liberal Democrat, and many conservative Democrats in the district voted for the moderate Republican Roscoe Bartlett, who won the general election. In 2008, Wayne Gilchrest, who represented Maryland's first district, lost the Republican primary to Andy Harris, a very conservative Republican backed by the Club for Growth. Harris narrowly lost the general election to conservative Democrat Frank Kratovil, who was undoubtedly helped by Gilchrest's endorsement. However, despite Kratovil's conservative votes in Congress, opposing most of Obama's agenda, Harris easily beat him in the 2010 rematch.
The 'red state' and 'blue state' labels are really not very accurate. There are several ways for states to vote (both chambers of the state legislature, governor, both Senators, House delegation, and President), and most states vote for Democrats and Republicans. For example, 2008 Indiana had a Republican governor (Mitch Daniels), one Senator of each party (Dick Lugar (R), and Evan Bayh (D), though he's very conservative), a two-thirds Republican majority in the state Senate, a narrow Democratic majority in the state House, four out of nine Republicans in the US House, and voted for Obama in 2008. Was it red or blue? (Incidentally, Indiana is home to both the chair of the Republican House caucus [Mike Pence] and the second Muslim elected to Congress [Andre Carson], who represents the same district his grandmother did before she died.)
Delaware has a Democratic governor and two Democrats in the Senate. It hasn't voted for a Republican for the latter post since 1994 or for the former since 1988. However, it had Mike Castle, a moderate Republican, in its sole House seat up until 2010, and he was secure in that position for several terms. Probably at least in part because John Boehner will no longer allow him to vote like a moderate, Castle announced that he would retire from the House and run to succeed Ted Kaufman, appointed to replace Joe Biden after he was elected Vice President. Everyone (including me) speculated that Castle would eventually be running against Beau Biden, Joe Biden's son, who was elected as Delaware's Attorney General in 2006 and is serving in the Judge Advocate General Corps as a captain in Iraq; however, Biden chose to run for reelection to his current post instead of the Senate. Castle ended up losing the primary to Christine O'Donnell, who is pretty extreme even for a Republican, opposing masturbation and any lying, ever, even to hide Jews from the Nazis. She was literally asked that question on a radio show, and she insisted that God would provide a way for her to be honest.
Meanwhile, Chris Coons, the county executive of New Castle County, which contains a sizeable majority of Delaware's residents, indicated that he'd rather like the job, and unlike Castle, faced no opposition in the primary The polls didn't look great, with Castle regularly beating Coons by ten or fifteen percent, but Tom Carper, Delaware's current senior senator, was in much the same position with William V. Roth, who in 2000 sought a sixth term as a Republican senator from Delaware. Despite Roth's high approval ratings, Carper ended up beating him 56-44. Coons was losing to Castle, but he is beating O'Donnell by larger margins. There's no way to know for sure now, especially since it's quite likely Castle will not run for elected office again, but I still think Coons could have beaten Castle. O'Donnell lost fairly ignominiously, but no doubt she will continue to run for office, since Carper and current governor Jack Markell are both up in 2012.
Normally party leadership is split up among people of different states; counting five leaders in the House and four in the Senate currently, only California is represented twice, with Minority Leader Pelosi and Majority Whip McCarthy, both in the House. However, in the House in the forties and fifties, the Majority and Minority Leaders were both from Massachusetts, and each party had control of the chamber multiple times. Both John W. McCormack (D) and Joseph W. Martin (R) later served as Speaker, and Martin alternated with Sam Rayburn (D-TX), who served longer than any other speaker before or since (seventeen years, though not all consecutively).