Republicans will live to fight another day, but let there be no mistake, they took a beating last week. 2006 was for Democrats what 1994 was for Republicans, an unambiguous across-the-board win.

Research Fellow John C. Fortier

Like Republicans in 1994, Democrats gained in the House, Senate, governorships, and state legislatures. No Democratic incumbent representative, senator, or governor lost. Nor did any Democratic open seat go Republican.

The final tally for Democrats awaiting the results of a few races is a net gain of 29 House seats, six Senate seats, six governorships, eight legislative chambers and 320 state legislators. Compare that to Republicans in 1994, who won 54 House seats, eight Senate seats, and 12 governorships, 20 legislative chambers and nearly 500 state legislators.

The 2006 public opinion wave was equal to that of 1994. The difference in seats gained is attributable to structural advantages Republicans enjoyed this election: fewer Republican open seats, fewer Republicans in Democratic-leaning districts, fewer Republican freshmen, and an excellent Republican turnout operation. The strength of sentiment against the ruling party was very similar to 1994.

Consider also how uncompetitive the races against incumbent Democrats were. Only six Democratic House incumbents out of 191 received less than 55 percent of the vote. In gubernatorial races, no Republican challenger to a Democratic incumbent came within eight points of winning. In the Senate, the same was true, with Tom Kean Jr. making the best show with an eight-point loss.

Looking at the state houses, on which the National Conference of State Legislatures (www.ncsl.org) provides excellent data, one striking victory was Democrats taking both houses of the New Hampshire legislature. The New Hampshire House had not gone Democratic since before the Civil War.

Despite all this bad news for Republicans, the parties remain pretty evenly matched. Both the Senate and the House are close by historical margins. The presidency is wide open in 2008. Party identification among voters is still relatively equal. Just as the talk after 2004 that Republicans had become the 51 percent majority party was misguided, so is the idea that this election is a harbinger of future Democratic dominance.

There are, however, some regional trends that bear watching. Republicans were beaten badly in the Northeast. Chris Shays is the only Republican House member left in the six New England states. The New York Republican delegation was reduced from nine to six, the Pennsylvania from 12 to eight. Meanwhile, Republican losses in the South were small: four seats in the House, including the beleaguered seats of Mark Foley and Tom DeLay. Overall, Republicans now hold 78 seats in the South and only 24 in the Northeast.

Democrats gained in the Midwest, which continues to be the most competitive region, although demographic shifts may help Republicans in the future in states like Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

In the Southwest, however, Democrats have begun to be more competitive, as the influx of Hispanic immigrants and relocators from California is changing the demographics of these fast-growing states. In Colorado in particular, Democrats have had two great cycles, taking a Senate and House seat in 2004 and another House seat and the governorship in 2006.

All in all, it was a big Democratic wave that broke across the country, especially in the Northeast. Many Republicans were swept out by the tide, but we are unlikely to break out of the era of party parity, and the battlefields of the future will be the Midwest and Southwest.

John C. Fortier is a research fellow at AEI.