We're still a bit bleary- eyed from watching the returns overnight, but here are some quick takeaways at the moment.
Overall:
-- Current projections have the Democrats winning 230 seats, taking over the House for the first time in eight years;
-- As expected, Republicans kept control of the Senate in a year where most of the battles were in deep red states. There are 3 seats too close to call (MT, AZ and FL) and one run-off seat (MS).
-- Democrats flipped a number of Governor seats (7 at last count).
Here are screenshots of the state of play at this time (7:30 a.m. EST). Click on map to enlarge (but for detailed results, go to the link):
House:
(Map via NBC News.com)
Senate:
(Map via NBC News.com)
Governors:
(Map via NBC News.com)
Notable:
-- Over 100 women are projected to win seats in the House, the vast majority of them Democrats, setting an all- time high;
-- Sadly, Andrew Gillum lost his bid to be Governor of Florida, but Sen. Bill Nelson's re- election race is still too close to call;
-- The Georgia gubernatorial race is too close to call, with a large number of absentee and provisional ballots waiting to be counted.
-- Among the odious House Republicans going down to defeat: VA Reps. Dave Brat, Scott Taylor and Barbara Comstock; TX Reps. Pete Sessions and John Culberson; NY Reps. Claudia Tennant, Dan Donovan and John Faso; MN Rep. Jason Lewis; IL Rep. Peter Roskam; GA's Karen Handel; and CA Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Sessions, Culberson and Roskam were all committee chairs in the House.
-- Jacky Rosen beat Sen. Dean "Ol' Yeller" Heller in Nevada; Nevada also has a new Democratic Governor, Steve Sisolak.
-- Democrats flipped key Governor seats in Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, Michigan, and Maine; the odious Scott Walker was booted in Wisconsin by Tony Evers and the king of voter suppression, Kris "KKK" Kobach, was suppressed in Kansas by Laura Kelly.
-- Firsts: two Muslim American women were elected to the House as Democrats, as were two Native American women (also as Democrats); and an openly gay man was elected Governor of Colorado.
-- A small but delicious victory: homophobe Kentucky Court Clerk Kim Davis was defeated in her re- election bid.
BONUS: Some more perspective on a very good night overall --
We should be talking about the projected raw popular vote totals much more. In terms of raw votes, this is shaping up to be a massive wave. That it may not translate into an enormous margin in a wave of seats is an indictment of how we draw districts more than anything. pic.twitter.com/D0j96RbjCs— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 7, 2018
BONUS II: If Dem Kyrsten Sinema loses the Senate race in Arizona, you can thank the useful idiots who voted for the Green Party candidate, who's pulling down about 2% of the vote. Oh, that's the same Green Party candidate who dropped out of the race last week and threw her support to Sinema.
