As far as the US Senate was concerned, not all of the 'Tea Party' candidates were competitive as advertised with Delaware's Christine O'Donnell and Nevada's Sharron Angle losing by bigger-than-anticipated margins and Alaska's Joe Miller facing a strong write-in challenge from incumbent Lisa Murkowski.
With that said, there were significant gains in Senate races elsewhere for Tea Party-backed candidates. Florida Republican Marco Rubio won about 50% of the vote in a three way race against Republican-turned-'Independent' Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek while opthamologist Rand Paul won the Senate seat in Kentucky.
Republican Mark Kirk won the US Senate seat formerly held by President Obama and will be sworn in by the end of the month. To the north, 3-term incumbent Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold lost to Republican challenger Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.
The GOP picked up senate seats in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Indiana and Arkansas while retaining Senate seats in 17 states (with Washington state and Alaska still being counted).
For the House of Representatives, the GOP is looking at a pickup of a bare minimum of 60 seats, with another 10 districts from shore of Lake Ontario to Washington state's San Juan Islands and California's Central Valley to be counted.
The Vets for Freedom PAC did fairly well with the House Candidates they backed for their Operation 10 in 10, with something like a 60% success rate for their original slate of candidates and an 80% success rate for their revised slate. Although Ilario Pantano (NC-7) and Sean Bielat (MA-4) fell short in their campaigns, the remaining 10 in 10 Candidates had a good Tuesday.
Lt. Col Allen West got 54.3% of the vote against incumbent Democrat Ron Klein in Florida's 22nd Congressional district.
In Columbus, OH, Lt. Col Steve Stivers beat incumbent Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by a 54%-40% margin for Ohio's 15th District.
Over in Illinois 11th Congressional district, Air Force Captain Adam Kinzinger handily beat incumbent Democrat Debbie Halvorson with 57% of the vote.
In Staten Island NY, US Marine Corporal and former FBI agent Michael Grimm beat out incumbent Michael McMahon by a 51%-47% margin while further up the Hudson, retired Army Col. Chris Gibson beat incumbent Democrat Scott Murphy by an 11 point margin in NY-20.
Over in Little Rock, AR, Army Major Tom Griffin won the seat that was being vacated in Arkansas 2nd Congressional district by retiring Dem Vic Snyder. Griffith beat his Democrat challenger by a nearly 20 point margin.
Closer to Washington DC (and Annapolis), former Navy Commander Andy Harris defeated incumbent Frank Kratovil with nearly 55% of the vote in Maryland's 1st District.
And rounding out the VFF's slate of candidates who will be sworn in come January is Col. Joe Heck, who won a tight race in Nevada's 3rd District against incumbent Diana Titus Tuesday night while all eyes were on the Reid/Angle Senate race.
In the upper Midwest, a couple of long-time Democrat Congressmen now find themselves able to relate to at least 10% of the American population in that they now find themselves out of a job. Perhaps most shocking was Jim Oberstar in Minnesota's 8th district, who had been in office since 1974. Republican Chip Cravaack managed to erode Oberstar's early lead and win the northern Minnesota district by a 2% margin. Reportedly this will be the first time Minnesota's Iron Range has sent a Republican to Congress since 1947.
In North Dakota's at-large district, Early Pomeroy had held that office since 1993. However, he lost by almost 10 points to GOP challenger and state legislator Rick Berg.
Meanwhile, Michigan's Bart Stupak and Wisconsin's David Obey each announced earlier this year that it was much easier to retire than to defend their votes for 0bamacare or cap & trade in this upcoming election cycle. Ashland County, WI District Attorney (and logroller) Sean Duffy wins Obey's open seat in WI-7 while Iron Mountain, MI surgeon and political novice Dan Benishek won his party's August primary by a margin of 15 (not 15%- 15 actual votes) and would go on to win just over 50% of the vote in a crowded 6-way race for Michigan's 1st district, edging his closest challenger by 11 points.
In upstate New York, it was looking as though incumbent Dan Maffei was on his way to a tight win of NY-25 when the Lonely Conservative reported that GOP challenger Ann-Marie Buerkle won Wayne County by a whopping 63%- a significant enough margin to put her up ahead of Maffei by a few hundred votes. There remains anywhere between 8,000 and 11,000 absentee ballots to be counted, with some of the military mail-in ballots not due back until later on this month, so it will be nail-biter time until then.
The GOP enjoyed similar sweeping gains in governor's mansions through the nation, including some Tea Party-backed candidates like Nikki Haley. I can tell you right now that after a cursory Google search, Haley's win is just as big news over in Punjab as it is in the Palmetto State. Haley is South Carolina's first female governor and actually the nation's second governor of Indian background after Louisiana's Bobby Jindal.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a big fan of quotas and 'lets count the minorities' headcount standards that the Mainstream Media and lefty pundits love applying to the conservatives, but the GOP and Tea Party acquitted itself well with a fairly diverse range of black, Hispanic, Asian and female candidates for a supposedly bigoted, embittered and unelectable fringe party of violent extremists.
And I actually made passing mention of this when I was updating the story of John Kriesel, but the GOP is also on track for record gains in state legislatures across the country just in time for the post-census redistricting. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this, both Legislative bodies in North Carolina and Alabama have flipped to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction. State Legislatures in Maine, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Minnesota Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, and Colorado have also gone to the Republicans.
Losses this staggering on pretty much every level were hard to ignore, but apparently President Obama attempted so far to spin the 'shellacking'- as he put it- as Americans misunderstanding his agenda or impatience for his policies to take effect rather than an outright rejection of them. White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs, taking a break from portraying a PC in those 'I'm a Mac, And I'm a PC' commercials, said that Tuesday's election was a sign that American's wanted 'both parties to work together'.....with a straight face, apparently.
Ummm...no, Bobby. Given this Administration's legislative priorities that have passed and what else is in the pipeline (Cap & Trade, Card Check, another 'stimulus'), gridlock would be a godsend.
That's what I voted for, at least.
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