The Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, despite the Republican gerrymandering advantage:  good.  The Repugs increased their margin in the Senate, by picking up Democratic seats in Florida (bad), North Dakota (not surprising), Indiana (disappointing), and Missouri (bad, that state has moved further to the right in the last twenty years), but they did forfeit Nevada (yeah!) to a rather lackluster Democrat, but a Democrat nonetheless.  (Her Republican opponent was Trump-endorsed.)  Many Governorships flipped to Democrats (7 in total), which will help with the 2020 round of gerrymandering.

Although RealClearPolitics is a right-leaning site (boo!), I like their way of listing election results since they highlight "pickups" very clearly.

Let's start with the state Governor races.  First, two bits of happy news:  that reactionary, union-busting moron Scott Walker lost to the Democratic challenger in Wisconsin–that means hope for labor and for universities in Wisconsin; and the Trump-endorsed immigrant-bashing lunatic Kris Kobach lost to a Democrat in the deep red state of Kansas.  (Illinois sent Repug Bruce Rauner back to his country club, as expected, and replaced him with a Democratic billionaire, which is better, but still indicative of the depths of pathology in these benighted states of America.)  Second, one very bad bit of news:   Andrew Gillum, an African-American who led in all the polls in Florida, lost to the Republican.  Since Florida is a big state, with lots of house seats, this is bad news vis-a-vis redistricting in 2020.  Third, bad news but with a silver lining:  an African-American woman in Georgia–a state rife with voter suppression efforts–performed consistently with the polls and appears to have lost by only 2 percentage points to the Republican–and this in the heart of the deep South! 

Moving now to the Senate, it was mostly bad news, as already noted, and not unexpected given the seats in play.  The 2020 map will favor the Democrats in the Senate, this one did not. Given the composition of the new Senate, impeaching Trump in the House will be particularly pointless, since there is no chance as things stand now of getting 2/3rds of the Senate to convict.  One notable fact:   the loathsome Ted Cruz beat his Democratic opponents by only 2.5 percentage points in the still-benighted-but-less-so state of Texas.  He is vulnerable.

And finally the House, here are a few races that caught my eye.   First, Leiter Reports readers clearly helped put Antonio Delgado over the top in his up-state New York district, to claim it for the Democrats!  Second, Virginia continues trending blue, with many Democratic pick-ups there, including a Democratic woman ousting Tea Party yahoo Dave Brat, who had previously ousted Republican Eric Cantor–a big change for that district!  In Illinois, a genuine liberal, Laurie Underwood, ousted the Republican in a suburban district near Chicago.  Third, the white nationalist and Nazi-wannabe Steve King retained his seat in Iowa, and so will continue to blight humanity with his pronouncements from a position of power.  Fourth, it looks like the awful Repug Dana Rohrabacher has lost to his Democratic challenger in California, although that's not official yet.   Fifth, the equally awful Repug Devin Nunes in California seems to have kept his seat.  Sixth, the states with the most Democratic pickups were New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, at least so far (some California results aren't in).  I'm still amazed any Republicans held their seats in states like New Jersey, New York and California after effectively raising taxes on many of their constituents by voting for the Republican tax bill that eliminated deductions for state and local income taxes–although it appears many who survived were in more rural, conservative parts of their states, probably with fewer effected taxpayers.

A Democratic House of Representatives will slow the pace of Republican and Trump mischief.  More states in the hands of Democrats will help insure that the post-2020 census redistricting does not so lopsidedly favor the minority party, i.e., the Republicans.  Finally, the extra Republican margin in the Senate means any Supreme Court vacancies will be filled with the most right-wing candidate available.