The overall vote total in the House and Senate races this year shows the Democrats winning 56% of the national vote, the Republicans 42%, and third party candidates and independents sharing the remaining 2%. At the national level that 14-point spread is considered a huge landslide. Yet the Democrats were only able to pick up about 30 House seats. While that is double what they needed to regain control, when you compare that number to previous "wave elections" (mid-terms that bounced a sitting president's party from power), 30 is a rather small number. For example, in 1994 Republicans received only 51% of the national vote, yet picked up 55 House seats (and 9 Senate seats).
Since 1990 many Republican governors, along with their Republican legislatures - and a little help from Tom DeLay - were able to draw the most obscene congressional districts to help keep Republican seats safe. Thus, the reason for the relatively modest Democratic gains last week.
But with Democrats back in control of a majority of the governorships, as well as the state legislatures, let's hope they can reverse the GOP gerrymandering and draw district boundries that are fair and balanced.
