And to add to the frustration, there was a lot of ticket splitting in Ohio.  Democrats did really well in statewide races--like US Senate, Governor, Attorney General, etc--but had a hard time in local State House races.  As a result Republicans are still in control of the State House and will still be able to gerrymander the State come 2010, unless Democrats do better in the down-ticket races over the next two elections.

Remember that in Delaware they were voting for longtime favorite son and former governor Mike Castle, a "moderate" Republican of the Chris Shays mould (the kind that otherwise Democratic voters will pull the lever for because it makes them feel more independent-minded). I'm sure that there were a large number of Democratic crossovers to vote for Castle because of his supposed bipartisan allure and his generally unoffensive, non-confrontational demeanor. Remember, Delaware does have a Democratic governor and two Democratic US Senators (although, yes, I realize Montana does too ;-) ) and gave its three electoral votes to John Kerry in 2004.

The CNN results probably aren't final.

I have them too: http://chris-bowers.mydd.com/story/2005/ 1/13/101435/418

My numbers differ slightly from the House Clerk's site for two reasons:

1.I have no idea.  They show more voters than I do, I have no idea where they get that from.

2.In several states, minor party candidates are allowed to run the same candidates the major parties do.  This is especially big in New York where the Liberal and Working Family Party often nominate Democrats.  The House Clerk site counts votes received on those ballot lines for those small parties whereas I count them as either votes for the Democrats or Republicans.

Not really.  I agree more with Barone.  You have to keep in mind that the Republicans ran 34 less candidates than the Democrats.  This would not be captured in the generic polls.

I hope to do a revised hypothetical vote if both parties ran 435 candidates.  It would likely lead to a vote of 52-46%, which still suggests a 50/50 nation.

Latham and King both won by pretty wide margins in their districts.

Boswell faced a top-tier challenge, and the other two were very contested pickups.

Still seems weird though

IA-05 is strongly Republican, while IA-04 didn't face a big challenge and won handily. Probably the main reason was that our one incumbent, Leonard Boswell, won by a very pathetic margin, 52%, even though he's been an incumbent for quite some time. He needs to retire.

The delegation is now 3-2 Democratic, not 4-1. It was previously 4-1 Republican.

Keep in mind, the Republicans ran 34 less candidates than the Democrats.  (although that also caused 5 incumbent Democrats to not appear on the ballot).

If you readjust those to come up with a hypothetical ballot where both parties ran 435 candidates, the likely result would have been 52-46%.

The reason for the differences in the seats, other than gerrymandering which had a big impact in Michigan and a few other states, was the power of incumbancy.

Republican incumbents held something like 15 seats by under 5,000 votes.

If you reduced the Republican total vote by those 75,000 votes (15*5,000=75,000) and added them to the Democrats, it would barely change the total voting percentage for the 80 million votes, but it would cause a change of 15 seats.

So, 233+15 gives you right around the 250.

That'd be nice in 2011, but it won't happen mid-decade.

IL uses a commission process, under which the Democratic majority could not push through a new plan.

The MI State Senate is Republican and is not up for election until 2010.

Both houses of the VA General Assembly are Republican, and might conceivably (but not probably) turn Democratic in 2007. We would have to take 3 Senate seats out of 23 Republican-held and around 10 House seats out of around 57 Republican-held.

Both houses of the OH General Assembly are Republican. To take the Senate in 2008, we would have to win 4 out of 13 Republican-held even-numbered Senate seats. To take the House, we would have to win 4 out of 53.

The FL governor is Republican, and is not up for election until 2010. Also, both houses of the FL Legislature are Republican, and we would have to win 7 out of 12 Republican-held odd-numbered Senate seats to take the Senate in 2008.

Both houses of the AZ State Legislature are Republican. The Senate is not up for election until 2010. Also, AZ is well-known for using a commission to redistrict.

The PA State Senate is Republican (and the State House is only weakly Democratic). To take the Senate in 2008, we would have to win 4 out of 13 Republican-held odd-numbered Senate seats.

CO's Constitution says that the assembly should district "when a new apportionment shall be made by Congress."

The point of this is that it is absolutely impossible for us to redistrict IL, MI, FL, AZ, or CO in our favor before the next post-census cycle. We are also very unlikely to be in a position to redistrict in OH or PA before then, and unlikely to be in such a position in VA.

I suppose we might pick up a seat in NM, in LA (although it's hard to imagine Blanco backing such a thing when she's in the political fight of her life), or even in MD, but one has to ask whether one or two seats is worth losing the moral ability to decry Republican mid-decade redistricting. (My favorite solution is for Congress to ban mid-decade redistricting.)