Okay….but how does ‘gerrymandering’ explain the fact that there are no Dem statewide office holders?

Gerrymandering is exactly how the Dems kept as many district level offices for as long as they did.

The Dems no longer have the Dixicrats

Are you trying to say the Dixicrats were the reason the Dems had much higher numbers in the 80s and 90s before the ‘94 shift?

The Dems no longer have the Dixicrats. Barring any alignment shifts, this is permanent. See next graf.

In re Texas: Remember, the Republican pickups in 2004 were entirely due to the Texas gerrymandering. When this is fixed in 2012, this will be a minor shift to help the Democrats.

I can only imagine the sick comments that will spew forth from Powerline

From Powerline:
“[M]y impression is that Johnson is a pretty good guy. We wish him the best.”

Those bastards!

Democrats now have 233 seats in the 110th congress, more than Republicans have had since 1952

Dude, historically, Democrats have been dominating the House with many more than 233 representatives. This is one of the smallest majorities the Dems have had. Certainly that’s better for Democrats than being in the minority, but it’s nothing in terms of their traditional power before the Republicans gained 54 seats in 1994 (Dems gained 32 seats this year).

Context counts. Again, that doesn’t take anything away from the Dem victories, but the Dem numbers remain on their low side historically.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Senator_Tim_Johnson_reportedly_suffers_stroke_1213.html

I can only imagine the sick comments that will spew forth from Powerline, LGFB, etc.

“…Democrats now have 233 seats in the 110th congress, more than Republicans have had since 1952.

The Republican “revolution” never secured this large a majority in the House. We beat them. We did better than they ever did. So much for the vaunted Republican political machine, which recorded record voter contacts, record fundraising, and record early voting this cycle.

With their best effort, we beat them harder than they ever beat us. With FL-13, we could make our total in the House 234…”

Stand up and be counted, Gentlemen. We are a growing part of American History.

With the netroots ActBlue candidate roster adding one more success this term (with all of, um, none in the “Rightroots” column, heh), perhaps we’ll see the end of the little snotnoses’ triumphalism.