1:15 am CST Update: 233 locked in & +58.

Based on the calls of TX-23 and CO-3 for Canseco and Tipton, respectively, the NY Times coverage map currently shows us with 233 seats locked in. This is a total gain so far of +53. That puts us 15 seats over the "magic number" of 218. The Dems were sitting at 255 before the election, and currently they're at 174 seats locked in.

The tossups include the following districts where the (R) is in the lead:

MN-8 (Cravaack over Oberstar) yes, I just said that. You're not on drugs.
UT-2, where Philpott currently leads by 33.
ID-1, where Labrador is leading by 8k.
WA-2, where Koster is leading by less than 1% with about 64% in.
NV-3, with Heck up by 1%.
CA-3, with Lungren up by 6%.
CA-11, with Harmer up.
CA-20, with Vidak up 0.5% with 50% reporting.
CA-45, where Mack (Mary Bono-Mack) is up early in the tally.
CA-44, with Calvert up early in the tally.
TX-27, with Farenthold up by 800 votes.

That's 11 districts, and it's not exactly being optimistic to think that we'll hold half of them. Call it 6, which puts us at 239, and +64. That's a 64 seat pickup, in a year that found the Republican Party torn between conflicts involving "insiders" and "tea partiers". Can you imagine how we'll do when these two groups learn to play nice and work TOGETHER?

And the momentum? Pretty much one sided. Other than Cao in LA, can you think of any other cases where a Dem flipped a seat blue from red? Any victory parties the Dems had tonight were victories of survival. All the initiative lies with the Republican party.

Think about this tomorrow when the pundits tell you that any Republican wave of less than 70 seats was "disappointing". Yeah, disappointing. Like that disappointing minor victory we won over the British Army back in 1815. Andy Jackson might have whipped the greatest army in the world with a bunch of backwoods hicks, but his failure to capture both Parliament AND the British Monarchy made it a disappointing failure in the long run. Right?

NOTE: Corrected to reflect the fact that my 2am math is somewhat shaky.

posted by Russ from Winterset at 02:38 AM

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