How well did Republicans do last Tuesday?  Very well, indeed, and when you look into the numbers, the story gets better and better.  They are favored to wind up with 54 Senate seats after the Alaska count is finished, and Louisiana has its run-off.

The total vote for the U.S. House of Representatives, the closest thing to a national proxy in an off-year, shows that Republicans won by 5 million votes, or almost a 7% margin.  In 2010, they won the popular vote by almost the exact same percentage margin.  But in 2010, white voters were 78% of the electorate, this year only 75%.  So Republicans improved their performance among minority voters over four years – in fact, among every single minority voting group.

In 2012, Democrats won the U.S. House vote by 1.1%, while Obama won by 3.9%.  So there was a huge shift from 2012 to 2014.  White voters were 75% this year, 72% in 2012, so again the shift was far larger than the shift between white and minority voters – meaning the GOP did much better among minority voters. 

Back in 2002, a book by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira predicted an emerging Democratic majority due to increased minority vote share and more educated white voters.  It has not happened the way they predicted.  Republicans today have a larger combined share of U.S. House and Senate seats and governors' offices than they have had in almost 100 years.  They control over 55% of state legislative seats and 69 of the 99 state legislative branches (Nebraska has only one).

Yes, Republicans are challenged by the Electoral College math – the so-called blue wall has many more electoral votes than reliably Republican states.  But if Republicans nominate a fresh face (not someone who has sought the nomination and lost before), a younger candidate than Hillary Clinton (that should be easy), and someone less boring than Clinton (even easier to do), and if they can create a positive vision of what they hope to accomplish after the stunning incompetence of the Obama team and the Democrats, they have a real shot in 2016. 

I think Republican wins for governor in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois, three very blue states, tells you that more voters see  failure in Democrat state monopolies.  What exactly did the Democrats run on this year?  The fake war on women, and stopping cops from killing "innocent" young black males, another fabrication. 

Pretty much the entire Maine public radio-listening audience was on suicide watch last Wednesday after the governor they hate, Paul LePage, was elected to a second term by a solid margin.  Check out the Portland Press-Herald picture from the election night celebration. 

There is no political figure in America with a more compelling rags-to-riches background, and who is less politically correct than LePage.  For me, this was one of the highlights of the election results. 

If you think you had a tough childhood, or know someone who did, consider this:

LePage was born in Lewiston, the eldest son of eighteen children of Theresa (née Gagnon) and Gerard LePage, both of French Canadian descent. He grew up speakingFrench in an impoverished home with an abusive father who was a mill worker. His father drank heavily and terrorized the children, and his mother was too intimidated to stop him. At age eleven, after his father beat him and broke his nose, he ran away from home and lived on the streets of Lewiston, seeking shelter wherever he could find it, including in horse stables and at a "strip joint". After spending roughly two years homeless, he began to earn a living shining shoes, washing dishes at a café, and hauling boxes for a truck driver. He later worked at a rubber company and a meat-packing plant and was a short order cook and bartender.

Take the time to read this.