The Big Picture - 2006 Election - With Maps

I'd like to toss out this composite map for discussion.
It combines Democratic election gains from four areas:
A. The U.S. Senate
B. The U.S. House
C. Governorships
D. State Legislatures

Take a look.  What do you see?

Lots more maps and commentary below the fold.

I'll present each of the four areas using three maps:
1) The party breakdown before the 2006 election
2) The party breakdown after the 2006 election
3) Democratic gains by state
The visual shift is very marked.

A. The U.S. Senate

A couple of quick comments.  The majority of Republican senators are from the South.  What a change from the days of the Boll Weevil Democratic senators!  Even though there were not many Deep Southern senate seats up for election this cycle, the prospects for Democrats are not good.  The last Democrat elected senator in Mississippi was in 1982 - in Texas in 1988.  Later maps will show which new Dem senator should receive the most praise - Claire McCaskill.  She had Republicans ensconced in both senate seats, the majority of the states congressional delegation, the state legislature, and the governor's mansion.  She didn't have a GOP meltdown as in Ohio, but she still won.  It should also be remembered that northern Virginians, many of whom are transplants, were responsible for electing Jim Webb.

B. The U.S. House

The total is 30 seats based upon current returns.  Not bad.  Not great, either.  The "Contract on America" folks got 52 seats.  In 1974, 1966, and 1958 the turnover was 47 seats each election.  There's good news and there's bad news.  The Dems nearly swept Pennsylvania's congressional delegation.  We also picked up 3 seats in New York and Indiana.  Indiana!!  The Democrats have a majority in Indiana's House delegation for the first time since God invented dirt.  Both seats in New Hampshire, two seats in Connecticut to soften the Lamont loss, two crucial seats in Iowa, and two seats in Arizona!  Of concern, the Democrats barely won Foley's and Delay's seats in Florida and Texas.  What's worse, we barely lost more than a dozen seats all across the country - Trauner and Madrid in the West -  Kissell and Jennings in the South - Davis and Farrell in the Northeast - and Wulsin and Duckworth in the Midwest.  If Tammy Duckworth cannot win during a time of senseless war and rampant corruption, even in a Republican district, it suggests that the "wave" may be fairly shallow.  The maps show that most Democratic  gains came in the Northeast and Midwest.

C. Governorships

Governorships offer a different angle on the 2006 election.  State issues usually take precedence over national ones.  The big news is in the West.  Napolitano, Richardson, and Freudenthal all won reelection with huge margins.  Ritter did almost as well in taking the Colorado governor's seat for the Dems.  Democrats did well in the Midwest, too - from Sebelius in Kansas to Strickland's big win in Ohio.  Hatch's loss in Minnesota is just, plain tough to take.  
Despite the importance of state issues, regional trends are apparent in the governorships.  In the seven states of the Deep South, six have Republican governors.  In Florida, the open-seat governor's race was never very close, although Davis closed in the end. Democratic control of the Louisiana governor's mansion is tenuous.  Bobby Jindal may well take it for the GOP next year.  A word of caution - the Governator's easy victory in Kahlifornia is not good news.  California remains strongly Republican underneath as the almost imperceptible Democratic ripple there in 2006 indicates.

D. State Legislatures

Although there were not senate and governor's races in every state, there were state legislative elections.  Like governor's races, these turn more on state and local issues.  Still, they reflect the depth of the Democratic wave.  Clearly it was a northern wave.  Democrats made huge inroads in New Hampshire flipping control of both houses of the legislature. Democrats took control of both houses in three northern states led by Minnesota and took one house in three more led by Michigan.  Pennsylvania is still in doubt.  Montana slipped a little.  Although the Republicans didn't take any legislatures, they made some small gains in Southern states.  In one of the oddities of the American political system, three Deep South states - Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana - have Democratic legislatures  even though other offices have long been controlled by Republicans.  Alabama's legislature has been Democratic since the end of Reconstruction.  Other Southern states have made the Nixonian Southern transition all the way down to the legislative level.  Arkansas, however, remains resolutely Democratic.

Before, After, and the Shift

As you can see from the "Before" map, it was something to make Karl Rove proud.  To get a deep red or deep blue rating, you have to control both senate seats, the house delegation, the governorship, and the legislature - no easy task.  Such was the case for the Republicans with 11 states.  Also note that these state all supported Bush in 2004 by large margins.  The Democrats, on the other hand, had only 4 deep blue states.  The Republicans had greater influence in the Midwest and had made inroads into the Northeast.  This changed dramatically after November 7th.  The Democrats now have 12 deep blue states to the Republicans' 9.   This bodes well for 2008 since four of these are Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, and West Virginia.  Add their electoral votes to Kerry's 2004 total and you have a Democratic president.

Was the 2006 election a landslide?  A realignment?  I would have to answer no to the first question.  1994 was had a bigger turnover of seats even though there was no Iraq War and relatively minor deficits compared to today's.  A landslide would have given the Democrats those races that were oh-so-close - NM-02, the Minnesota governorship, the Tennessee senate seat.  A landslide would have been seen in closer races for many Republican incumbents even if they still prevailed.  As it was, many Republican incumbents cruised to reelection with totals equal to those in previous years.  This suggests a number of things - an apathetic electorate, a shallow level of discontent with the Bush administration, and an immense political chasm that may be unbridgeable.  But it wasn't a landslide.

With regard to the question of realignment there are two answers.  There is no evidence of a national realignment, but the Democrats are looking at a major realignment in three regions of the country - the northeast, the Midwest, and the West.  Even though the Northeast is already strongly Democratic, the party made major gains there.  Although the Lamont challenge may not have unseated Joe Lieberman, it did inform Republicans that their party was increasingly irrelevant in the region.  There was a major transition in the Midwest.  For Ohio to go Democratic is the death knell of the Republican Party.  For Indiana to follow is the last coffin nail.  Since the late 1980s, Democratic strength has been slipping in the Upper Midwest.  Now is the time to regain it.  

The South is a tougher nut to crack.  Most of the limited Democratic gains came either in border regions or in seats relinquished by disgraced Republicans or former NFL football players.  The Deep South appears intractable.  If the Democrats could not put a dent in Republican numbers in 2006, then they are not likely to do so in the near future.  The Upper South and South Florida offer better prospects, but not at the expense of derailing a realignment in the other regions of the country.  The West continues to trend Democratic.  Although some close races did not fall our way, there were dramatic gains in Colorado and Arizona.  New Mexico has a strong Democratic base.  Montana and Nevada are next.  Along with the Pacific Coast states, this suggests that the Democratic Party will soon become dominant in the West.  And with control of the West, the Democratic Party will become the majority party for a generation.

Your comments and criticisms are most welcome.

UPDATE A note on determining "Party Strength": Each of the four categories is assigned a 1, 0, or -1. 0 is a neutral score if the senate seats are split, the house delegation is split, or the legislature is split. A 4 or 3 yields a deep color. A 2 or 1 yields a lighter color. A state can still be deep blue with one GOP senator if the governor, legislature, and house delegation are all Dem.

UPDATE2 [ManfromMiddletown http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:15002] has great specific information on Northeastern races.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/12/44850/976

I've also updated my Montana Legislature information.