By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: November 9, 2006
CHICAGO, Nov. 8 — Democratic gains in Congress and governorships were matched on Tuesday by a surge involving state legislatures, where more than 275 seats and nine chambers switched from Republican to Democratic hands.
The victories, combined with the six new Democratic governors, have given the Democrats one-party government in 15 states, including New Hampshire for the first time since 1874, and Colorado for the first time since 1960.
No party has totally controlled as many as 15 states since the Republicans achieved that level after the 1994 election.
What is equally remarkable, said Tim Storey, a senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures, is that the gains occurred across the country, even in the South, where Democrats had lost ground in every statehouse election since 1982.
The Southern gains were tiny, about 21 legislative seats across 14 states, but the direction, Mr. Storey said, was the important factor.
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Democrats picked up a sixth seat in Maryland, where Mayor Martin O’Malley of Baltimore edged out Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
That shifted the advantage in governors to Democrats for the first time since 1994. The Democrats now control 28 governors’ seats to the Republicans’ 22. Before Election Day, those numbers were reversed.
The legislative gains, by contrast, were concentrated in the Midwest, where Democrats picked up about 104 seats, along with control of both chambers in Iowa, the Indiana House, the Michigan House and the Wisconsin Senate, and in the Northeast, where their net exceeded 140 lawmakers.
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“The state has been becoming more Democratic over last 20 years,” said Andrew E. Smith, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “But this swing is a real tidal wave.”
Democratic lawmakers in Maine also surged, especially in the House, where they went from a one-vote majority, 74 to 73 with four independents, to a 91-to-51 majority. In Oregon, the shift was smaller, but the effect was huge. A shift of four House seats, with two races undecided on Wednesday, along with the re-election of Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski, gave Democrats control of the Legislature and governor’s office for the first time since 1992.
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A political scholar who has tracked Colorado politics for years said he thought that the gains were less about a new Democratic message and more about reaction against the old Republican one. The expert, Robert D. Loevy, a professor of political science at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, said the election illustrated a core shift on where the parties obtained votes. The well-educated, affluent close-in suburbs of Denver, Professor Loevy said, are shifting to Democratic from Republican.
“This used to be the backbone of the Republican Party in Colorado,” he said. “But the rise of social conservatism in the Republican Party — pro-life, anti-stem cell — has alienated large numbers, and that’s the group that has abandoned the Republicans more than any other.”
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