E Pluribus Unum

From John Fund of the WSJ (subscription req'd):

The general GOP euphoria over Tuesday's election results should not obscure the fact that the election was close and that Republican victories become scarcer as you go further down the ballot. Republicans did win governorships in Indiana and Missouri and are tied in Washington State. But they lost the New Hampshire and Montana governorships and wound up losing seats in state legislatures overall.

Of the country's 99 state legislative chambers, the GOP lost control of six and won only four from the Democrats. Republicans have apparently gone from having complete control of both chambers in 21 states to only dominating 17 states. Most of the GOP pickups involve the slow dissolution of Democratic dominance in the South. In Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma the Republicans will now control the state House for the first time in decades, or in the case of Georgia since Sherman's march to the sea in 1864.

But Republicans also lost ground in some traditional strongholds. Democrats now control both houses of the Colorado legislature for the first time since the 1950s. They also failed to win any seats at all in California, despite the campaigning and fundraising prowess of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Hawaii, that state's popular GOP governor, Linda Lingle, saw the voters ignore her appeals for a more cooperative legislature as unions picked off several Republican incumbents. Even in the South, Democrats made some gains, winning back complete control of North Carolina's state House.

The lesson here is that while Republican grassroots efforts may have improved, the quality of many of their state legislative candidates and campaigns remains poor. Democrats may be the opposition party in Congress, but they are alive and kicking at the state level.