2006 ELECTION OVERVIEW
Federal Level:
Democrats need 15 seats to capture the U.S. House. (Contested seats are
scattered literally all over the country, but are concentrated in the
Midwest and Northeast, and to a lesser extent in the western states of
Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
Democrats need to pick up six seats to capture the U.S. Senate. (Tier
One races: Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island. Tier Two
races: Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee and Virginia.)
State Level:
46 states are holding state legislative elections this year (all states
except Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia).
7,382 state legislative seats are up for grabs.
Although Democrats lost the presidential election and had a net loss of
seats in Congress in 2004, they netted more than 60 state legislative
seats nationwide. Nationwide, the number of legislative seats is very
evenly split between the two parties, with Democrats holding a 21-seat
advantage.
In nine states, BOTH legislative chambers are within four seats of a tie
or a new majority:
In 16 ADDITIONAL states, ONE legislative chamber is within four seats of
a tie or a new majority.
So control of one or both legislative chambers could be in play in many
of these 25 states. The party that controls the White House has lost state legislative seats
in all but one off-year election since 1940. The lone exception was
November 2002, when 9/11 dominated the political landscape. "Wave" elections at the top of the ballot sometimes create down-ballot
tsunamis. In 1994, when Republicans picked up more than 50 seats in the
U.S. House, they also netted more than 500 state legislative seats. An
off-year "wave" election also occurred in 1974, but in reverse, with
Democrats picking up hundreds of state legislative seats in the wake of
the Watergate scandal.
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