I hear that on a local level Dems did well on November 2

[WI_DEM]

I understand that Democrats deflated Republican control of state legistlatures in several states, for instance in Minnesota, the state house went from twenty odd GOP seat majority to only two or three. And that Dems gained legislature victories in Colorado and elsewhere. Can anybody shed any light on this. If this is true, that is actually very good news because the work of revitalizing the party, as Howard Dean has often said, starts at the local level.

[janx]

1. YES!

It worked in Colorado. Our state legislature is now Dem, and we finally have one U.S. senator (Salazar) who will be representing us nationally.

I posted this elsewhere yesterday:

What You Won't Hear on TV Today
Governor Howard Dean sent this message to Democracy for America supporters today.

Montana, one of the reddest states, has a new Democratic governor.

First-time candidates for state legislatures from Hawaii to Connecticut beat incumbent Republicans.

And a record number of us voted to change course—more Americans voted against George Bush than any sitting president in history.

Today is not an ending.

Regardless of the outcome yesterday, we have begun to revive our democracy. While we did not get the result we wanted in the presidential race, we laid the groundwork for a new generation of Democratic leaders.

Democracy for America trained thousands of organizers and brought new leadership into the political process. And down the ballot, in state after state, we elected Dean Dozen candidates who will be the rising stars of the Democratic Party in years ahead.

Tens of millions of us are disappointed today because we put so much of ourselves into this election. We donated money, we talked to friends, we knocked on doors. We invested ourselves in the political process.

That process does not end today. These are not short-term investments. We will only create lasting change if that sense of obligation and responsibility becomes a permanent part of our lives.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

We will not be silent.

Thank you for everything you did for our cause in this election. But we are not stopping here.

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

http://www.democracyforamerica.com

[Arkana]

2. I know MA did

We stomped most all Repube opposition. Romney's "R Stands For Reform" crap "went in with a bang and out with a whimper and a sickening SPLAT."

[hertopos]

3. Yes, I heard about that when I was so depressed.

And I first heard about them from DFA. Guess what I signed up for DFA and local meetup group.

State legistlatures are so important that it will eventually give us cngressional edge.

People should stop talking about 2008. Focus on 2006 and e-voting fraud.

Hertopos

[madfloridian]

4. Dallas County, TX for one.

I saw several articles about this. Will search..was in the Dallas Morning News.
NoParasan and Democracy for TX did great there.

[janx]

5. Please post!

I'd love to see it.

[madfloridian]

9. Here you go.

This links to several articles. I think Dean mentioned the woman sheriff on the conference call. A lot of Dean/DFA people worked for these folks.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/stories/110404dnmetdaldems.2c916.html

Political observers said Wednesday that unexpected Democratic victories in several countywide elections foreshadowed the end of the Republican reign over Dallas County politics.

"The Democrats are on their way back," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

He predicted two years ago that Dallas County's longtime political underdogs would see some gains in Tuesday's election....."

Could be demographics, could be as NoParasan says that there are changes going on there.

[NoPasaran]

10. Reposted from the Texas Forum: Austin---Our Landslide

From the Austin For Kerry list:

Friends,

Austin For Kerry did an incredible job! In 2000, Gore/Lieberman
polled 125,526 votes in Travis County and lost to Bush/Cheney 46-41%.
Even adding in Nader's 31 Thousand votes would only bring the
progressive total to 52%. This year Kerry/Edwards polled over 196
Thousand votes and won Travis County with 56%!

The Kerry-Edwards voters also elected Greg Hamilton, Stephen
Yelenosky, Jan Patterson and Mark Strama against tough Rethug
opposition.

We helped finance the coordinated campaign, our volunteers manned
phone banks, blockwalked, and put up signs. We did all that we could
do and WE WON in Travis County. No one could expect more from us. And
we did this all out of the slender resources of our own pockets. A4K
is a model for the kind of grassroots organization that our
Democratic Party needs to use to win its way back to power. I hope
that in some way we can keep some of this group together for future
battles.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=180x6336

Austin has the reputation of being a blue island in a vast conservative sea, but in recent years even our own county had started going red. We reversed that trend this year. We registered 85,000 new voters and then got most of them to the polls. And we did that without any real money---it was hundreds of volunteers who worked with the various local candidates' campaigns or Asutin4Kerry and Democracy for Texas. Three hundred thosand pieces of campaign lit put on voters' doors; three pallets of our own Kerry/Edwards yard signs... no wonder I'm so tired!

[IndianaGreen]

6. Indianapolis and Marion County voted for Kerry

The problem is the Electoral College and the winner-take-all system that disenfranchises everyone that did not vote for the winner.

Indianapolis votes:

BUSH/CHENEY (REP) 155,843 48.68%
KERRY/EDWARDS (DEM) 161,957 50.58%

http://www2.indygov.org/elections/Gen2004/SummaryReport.html

Problem is that only 53% of all eligible voters went to the polls. That's a significant indictement of the 2-party system.

[5thGenDemocrat]

7. Saginaw Township (MI) elected a Dem to the township board

For the first time ever. That may not sound like a big step, but it's HUGE news on the local scene. The township is still way Republican.
John
Haven't looked at a map, but I have to suspect that Ms Seaver(D)'s district borders on the city.

[Ramsey]

8. We did well in the state legislatures

From the Wall Street Journal (sorry no link, proprietary):

The general GOP euphoria over Tuesday's election results should not obscure the fact that the election was close and that Republican victories become scarcer as you go further down the ballot. Republicans did win governorships in Indiana and Missouri and are tied in Washington State. But they lost the New Hampshire and Montana governorships and wound up losing seats in state legislatures overall.
Of the country's 99 state legislative chambers, the GOP lost control of six and won only four from the Democrats. Republicans have apparently gone from having complete control of both chambers in 21 states to only dominating 17 states. Most of the GOP pickups involve the slow dissolution of Democratic dominance in the South. In Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma the Republicans will now control the state House for the first time in decades, or in the case of Georgia since Sherman's march to the sea in 1864.

But Republicans also lost ground in some traditional strongholds. Democrats now control both houses of the Colorado legislature for the first time since the 1950s. They also failed to win any seats at all in California, despite the campaigning and fundraising prowess of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Hawaii, that state's popular GOP governor, Linda Lingle, saw the voters ignore her appeals for a more cooperative legislature as unions picked off several Republican incumbents. Even in the South, Democrats made some gains, winning back complete control of North Carolina's state House.

The lesson here is that while Republican grassroots efforts may have improved, the quality of many of their state legislative candidates and campaigns remains poor. Democrats may be the opposition party in Congress, but they are alive and kicking at the state level.

Edited to add: Republicans now control 20 state Legislatures. Democrats have 19, and 10 are split, with Democrats holding one chamber and Republicans the other.
Before Tuesday's vote, the GOP held 21 and the Democrats 17, with 11 split. The Nebraska Legislature, which has only one chamber, is nonpartisan.