In further proof that this November’s elections were no fluke, the Democratic majority in the House has increased by one as of last night.
Adding another victory to the Democrats’ sizable scoops this season, former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez reclaimed a seat in the House with his runoff victory against incumbent Henry Bonilla, who had served seven terms. The vote was 54 percent to 46 percent.
Democrats beat Republicans, even in Texas.
The cherry on top of this one is that Ciro was the first big candidate pushed by the netroots this year, and his initial loss in Tom Delay’s gerrymandered district was greeted with hoots and jeers by the wingnutosphere claiming it showed again how ineffectual those silly Kos Kidz were.
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.
From Chris Bowers’ http://www.mydd.com:
“…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.
Control of the Senate may shift… MSNBC is currently reporting that Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) has suffered a stroke.
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.
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.
From Powerline:
“[M]y impression is that Johnson is a pretty good guy. We wish him the best.”
Those bastards!
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.
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.
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?
I remember a time when Texas use to be cool. Then Jr. came along and Texas got religion in a big way.
Maybe they decided they didn’t like being stupid anymore.
Re: “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.”
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.