In judging the overall political impact of the 2018 midterm elections, among the most overlooked elections are the secondary statewide elective offices.  These offices and elections vary dramatically from state to state, and most voters could not tell you all these offices in his state or who the candidates were in the midterm elections.  This suggests that partisan sentiment guided most voters.

What sort of state offices, other than governor, are elected in statewide elections?  Depending on the state, lieutenant governors, attorneys general, secretaries of state, state treasurers, auditors and inspectors, agriculture commissioners, labor commissioners, insurance commissioners...and so on.

Not only do the results of these elections indicate how voters feel about political parties, but the margins of victory are also important.  State attorney general is a pretty important secondary statewide elective office.  Republicans won thirteen races, and Democrats won sixteen.  Republicans won in key red states Ohio, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.  Moreover, the races in Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and Colorado were close Democrat victories.

According to the National Lieutenant Governors Association, in those states in which the governor and lieutenant governor can be of opposite parties (i.e., the two offices are independently elected), only one net change occurred after the midterm elections.  Those two offices, state attorney general and lieutenant governor, are the two most important secondary statewide offices.  These officers frequently move on to governor or senator.

Overall, including governor, there were 303 statewide elective officers who stood for election in the midterms, and 250 stayed with the party already holding the office.  Democrats gained 43 offices that had been held by Republicans, and Republicans gained five that had been held by Democrats.  Republicans continue to hold most of those offices, just as they continue to hold most state legislative seats and most governorships. 

When considering the modest number of state legislative seats and chambers won by Democrats and the relatively minor losses in secondary statewide elective offices, election night was not bad for Republicans, especially if the media were looking for a "wave" election.

In fact, Republicans retained control of both houses of the state legislature in key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia.  This means that redistricting after the 2020 Census will once again be primarily controlled by Republicans, making House seats and state legislative seats more likely on balance to elect Republicans than Democrats.

What this all means is that the basic strength of the two political parties looking into the future remained basically unchanged in the 2018 midterm elections.  Understanding this fact requires understanding the pathetic weakness of the Republican Party in state governments up until the 1994 Republican landslide, which swept Republicans for the first time in many decades in control of not only both houses of Congress, but also state legislatures and state governments, including the usually overlooked secondary statewide elective offices. 

There will be an off-year election for state legislatures in New Jersey, Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and there will be gubernatorial elections in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana next November.  This will provide a bit more information about the mood of the voters heading into the 2020 presidential election.  If the pattern in 2019 is like the pattern in 2018, then that is significant evidence that 2020 will be an election much like 2016. 

If that is the case, then Republicans will continue to control the Senate and will have a decent change of flipping the House, and Trump will have a good chance of carrying those states – especially Rust Belt states – that were pivotal to his victory two years ago.