10 election results you missed

1. Not only did voters in three states (Maine, Maryland, Washington State) legalize same-sex marriage, and voters in one state refuse to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman — the first openly gay person was elected to the U.S. Senate (Rep. Tammy Baldwin), North Dakota elected its first openly gay state legislator, and gay or gay-friendly candidates prevailed in the more than a dozen races targeted by the Human Rights Campaign.

2. As one wag put it, Koch Zero: California Proposition 32, which would have banned unions from automatically deducting dues from worker paychecks but left loopholes for corporations, was defeated. All six races targeted by Sheldon Adelson's $50+ million fell to the person or entity he was trying to defeat.

3. Democrats might have gained a supermajority in California's legislature, meaning that they could raise taxes if so inclined. Republicans control the legislature in Arkansas now, a first for them in over 150 years. Democrats regained control of the Minnesota legislature.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

4. Asian-Americans were 3 percent of the national vote, but they turned in favor of President Obama by an even higher percentage than Hispanics did.

5. As Politico's Charlie Mahtesian notes, Blue Dog Democrats were decimated. Three lost their seats; four retiring Dem seats were picked by Republicans. The House will be much more partisan than it was, even though Dems will probably wind up netting several seats. At this late hour, it looks like they'll pick up three in Arizona.

6. Nate Silver may be everyone's hero, but three polling firms had poor track records: Rasmussen, Mason-Dixon, and Gallup.

7. New Hampshire elected a woman governor, a new woman senator, and will send a new woman to the House of Representatives. All four top office-holders in that state are women.

8. Big-name House incumbents turned out of office: Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.), Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), Rep. Larry Kissel (D-N.C.), and Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa). Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) barely held on, but the jury is out on the fate of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who seems to have been stunned by a well-funded out-of-nowhere challenger named Bill Bloomfield. Also, Rep. Howard Berman lost to Rep. Brad Sherman in a Dem vs. Dem race in California.

9. Mia Love, the GOP's shining hope for inclusion and a key speaker at the GOP convention, lost her bid to defeat Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah). Love is an African-American Republican.

10. Two renewable energy initiatives backed by environmentalists failed to gain majority support in Michigan and Arizona, perhaps reflecting economic concerns.