The results of Tuesday night’s presidential election were shocking beyond words, and the news was little better for Democrats further down the ballot. In the battle for the Senate, Democrats were guaranteed to pick up just a single seat, as Rep. Tammy Duckworth defeated GOP Sen. Mark Kirk in Illinois. Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto also succeeded in beating Republican Rep. Joe Heck to hold Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada, becoming the first-ever Latina senator.
While the map had looked very favorable for Democrats at the start of the cycle, almost every other competitive race went for Republicans, including contests in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina. The biggest disappointment of all came in Wisconsin, where former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold had led in the polls all cycle long, even as the race tightened at the end; nevertheless, he fell to GOP Sen. Ron Johnson.
New Hampshire was too close to call when we put the Digest to bed, but Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan had a lead of less than 1 percent on GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte with most votes counted. Regardless of the outcome in the Granite State, though, Republicans will almost certainly hold either a 53-47 or 52-48 majority in the Senate come January, down just slightly from the 54-46 advantage they held heading into Election Day. (The GOP is heavily favored to win a runoff in Louisiana next month.)
Republicans also kept control of the House with little problem. Democrats made a few scattered gains, mostly attributable to court-ordered redistricting. As is the case every cycle, several races remain uncalled in California, where mailed-in ballots can take a couple of weeks to get counted, but they won’t affect who holds the House.
And while there weren't many governorships up for grabs Tuesday, Republicans made headway there as well, winning races in Missouri and Vermont. They also picked up several legislatures, including the Kentucky state House (which Democrats had held since 1932), the Iowa state Senate, and even the New York state Senate.
As always, we’ll be tracking all the races that go to overtime at Daily Kos Elections, come hell or high water. We’ll also get to work right away on calculating the results of the presidential race for all 435 congressional districts, and for state legislative districts as well, and we’ll publish those on a rolling basis as soon as we crunch them. There's much more to come in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Please join us as we do our utmost to learn from what happened.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.