Nov. 7 was a big day for Democrats

Locally, statewide, and nationally, Democrats made out very well on Nov. 7. It was clear early on that the House of Representatives was going to be majority Democratic and the only question was how big the margin would be. Now it's just a question of how many seats over 230 (out of 435). Today's Washington Post lists nine undetermined House races, but only two where the Democrat is in the lead. With the recently-declared victory of Jim Webb in Virginia, there will even be a Democratic majority in the Senate. My hope is that this means that no more Alitos (or clones of Scalia) will be confirmed for any judicial post during the last two years of Bush's disgraceful reign. There'll certainly be no more talk now of a change in the Senate rules to allow ending a filibuster by majority vote so that the courts can be stacked with right-wing ideologues. There may even be a few well-deserved and overdue investigations now that Democrats will chair all committees and control the investigating apparatus in both houses of the Congress.
Statewide, the pre-election polls were starting to look a little scary for Martin O'Malley and Ben Cardin, but both won convincingly (the latter moreso than the former). Both of these winning Democrats carried the predictable jurisdictions of Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George's Counties by big margins and both added Charles and Howard Counties to their win list. Cardin even added Baltimore County, but O'Malley just missed out there on the home turf of Gov. Ehrlich. I was especially happy to see Cardin prevail over the sleazy, fraudulent and/or racist ploys by the opposition and a handful of contemptible Democratic politicos from Prince George's County for whom the color of Michael Steele's skin was more important than his positions on issues. It was good to see that the voting public was not taken in by them in any significant way.
In state legislative races, Democrats picked up two seats in the State Senate (although that could go back to one after absentee ballots are counted in Anne Arundel's LD31, where old guard Democrat Walter Shandrowsky leads religious right Republican Bryan Simonaire by 198 votes going into it). The Democratic gains there are in Howard's LD13 (Jim Robey/see below) and LD21 (where Jim Rosapepe smashed former Democrat and incumbent new Republican John Giannetti by better than 2 to 1). I'll admit to actively campaigning for Rosapepe.
In the House of Delegates, the Democratic gain is at least seven and possibly nine. The two seats most in doubt prior to the absentee count are both in Baltimore County. In LD8, Democrat Ellen Baisden leads incumbent Republican Joe Boteler by 47 votes. In LD42, Democrat Tracy Miller leads incumbent Republican and religious rightist William Frank by just seven votes. I'll be pleasantly surprised if both Baisden and Miller prevail. I can't resist applauding at the apparent loss of the fervently anti-gay crusader Don Dwyer in LD31. He's sufficiently behind fellow Republican Nick Kipke for the final delegate slot that his prospects for making it are slim indeed.
Locally, there was a lot of pre-election concern over whether County Executive Jim Robey would be able to overcome the advantages of incumbency held by State Senator Schrader in LD13, whether Ken Ulman could keep the County Executive position in Democratic hands in the face of all this talk about zoning and growth, and whether the Democrats could retain a majority of the County Council seats. But the county voters made it look easy. Robey defeated Schrader by over 5000 votes. Ulman sent Chris Merdon into political retirement by over 10,000 votes. And Democrats went from 3-2 on the Council to 4-1. Both Ulman and district 3 Council candidate Jen Terrasa demonstrated that getting shut out of newspaper editorial endorsements didn't mean a thing with their easy victories. (When I wasn't working in the Rosapepe campaign, above, I was doing it for Terrasa and/or Ulman.) Courtney Watson was impressive in winning the fourth Council seat in a historically Republican district.
With the election of Robey over Schrader, Democrats now have a 2-1 majority in the county's Senate delegation and a 6-2 majority in the House delelation. That means that the Democratic legislative agenda for the county should have smooth sailing on its way to enactment in Annapolis.
None of the delegate races in my district (LD13) were all that close, but I've got to say that Democrat Dave Osmundson came closer to defeating Republican incumbent Warren Miller in the very conservative and reliably-Republican LD9A than I expected.
Some Republican incumbents in low-level elective offices in the county felt the Democratic breeze blowing. Longtime Register of Wills Kay Hartleb, a Republican who was originally elected as a Democrat, leads as the counting of absentee ballots starts. She'll probably prevail, but it's no sure thing. The judges of Orphan's Court went from 2-1 Republican to 2-1 Democrat and it was clear that, if the Democrats has run a third candidate for that office, it would have been a clean sweep.
I'm going to be checking on the precinct by precinct results later on.