State Legislative Chambers in LA, MS, and VA

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And here are their final configurations as of September 2012.
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Louisiana House:

58 Republicans
45 Democrats
2 independents

Louisiana Senate:

24 Republicans
15 Democrats

Mississippi House:

64 Republicans
58 Democrats

Mississippi Senate:

31 Republicans
21 Democrats

Virginia House:

67 Republicans
32 Democrats
1 independent

Virginia Senate:

20 Republicans
20 Democrats

[Frodo]

Virginia Senate I see for most of the same reason--I don't think the Democrats can protect their seats even if they gerrymander it heavily.  Also, Republicans are likely to pick up a seat or two in NOVA (where they hold every seat) even if the Democrats try to gerrymander protection simply because NOVA isn't uniformly Democratic enough to support a 10-0 Delegation.  On top of that, 2011 is almost certainly going to be a better year for Republicans than 2007 was, which was when the Chamber was last elected.

I am not arguing with what you're saying, but are you sure you don't want to edit that part I bolded?  Because I am absolutely positive that Republicans do not control every Senate district in Northern Virginia. 

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Out of curiosity, is it possible for the GOP to get supermajorities in either Mississippi and/or Louisiana like they currently have in Alabama?  

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Seems as if southern and northeastern Mississippi will be the main battlegrounds for legislative races there:

State GOP, Democrats square off in races

By GEOFF PENDER - glpender@sunherald.com
   
The state Democratic and Republican parties are gearing up for an epic partisan battle over control of the state House and Senate, as legislative candidates met a Wednesday deadline to file to run for office.

Both state parties are expected to pump record amounts of resources into the races, likely more so than in the statewide office races such as governor and lieutenant governor. At stake, primarily, is the powerful House speaker position, which has been in the Democratic Party’s hands in Mississippi since Reconstruction.

South Mississippi and Northeast Mississippi will be key battlegrounds, with the GOP attempting to translate a huge Republican swing in the 2010 midterm federal elections to the state legislative level.

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Now that the primaries and run-offs are over, how does it look in Mississippi?  Will there be an all-Republican legislature there by next January? 

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Why is everyone discussing New Jersey legislative races in this thread? 

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Mississippi should be a good state for the GOP this year. There's a redistricting battle going on here that will most likely damage the Democrats severely. House Speaker Billy McCoy is trying to circumvent the State Constitution by refusing conference with the Senate and taking the issue to the justice department after the map proposed by the Democrats in the House failed to pass the Senate. We may wind up having legislative elections in back to back years if the issue isn't settled. But, McCoy is damaging his party with the attitude he is taking toward the process. A year or so ago, the House seemed out of reach for the GOP. Now it looks very winnable.

Excellent post.  

Clear, factual, and logical.

Actually, there is one other thing I should probably add. I don't know why I didn't think to put this in before. The redistricting battle may well be what determines the outcome of the House elections this year in Mississippi. If McCoy gets his way, that may be enough to hold the House for the Dems. But, if the GOP wins this battle or they run in current districts this year and run in new districts next year, that makes things considerably easier for the GOP.

Someone may find this link interesting: http://www.scribd.com/doc/50413003/Malone-Mathis-Story.  In this article, a sitting Democrat member of the House actually admits that he had the lines of his district on the new map so that he wouldn't have an opponent in the upcoming elections. There's been a lot of, shall we say, curious features about the House Democrats' map. Such as, districts in the Delta region which has lost population roughly equivalent to two House districts being stretched a bit to the east so that region wouldn't lose seats, while the Hattiesburg area, which is growing and is much more Republican-leaning, isn't gaining seats as would be expected.

Here are the current and House-propsed maps if anyone is interested:

Current: http://www.scribd.com/doc/49975345/2002-House-map
Proposed: http://www.scribd.com/doc/49975251/House-2011-proposal

Edit: BTW, a lot of information about the redistricting battle can be found here: http://majorityinms.com/. I know some will probably complain about the site being Republican-leaning, but they have been keeping close tabs on the process. If anyone has any interest in the subject, you can probably at least find some links you'll find interesting.

How does it look right now?  Will the GOP finally get complete control of the legislature? 

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It doesn't really matter which party "controls" the Mississippi legislature.  Either way, it's 90% super right wingers.  For whatever reason, the extreme far right is the only group that's mobilized enough to run for the legislature and win.

Perhaps it doesn't matter to you, but it is still interesting to see how much more racially polarized the two parties become in the state once the remaining rural white conservative Democrats are ousted and replaced by Republicans.  

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What about the Virginia State Senate?  It is currently 22D, 18R.  I remember the Democrats gaining 5 seats to take a 21 to 19 advantage in 2007, then adding one more in a special election when the new Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, vacated his seat.

Is this likely to change one way or the other?

Johnny Longtorso wrote up a pretty good analysis over in Daily Kos (which he also linked to earlier in this thread).  I would be curious to see if he has done any updates on the races since then.  

Edit: he did actually do an update, though this was back in early September.   

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I'll have one more update prior to the election, once the final fundraising reports come out. Basically I see it as a tossup. It's really hard to predict, though, since there's no polling.

Is it ready?

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Decided to pull this from another thread just to keep it on track:

Oh, and if a new election is ordered in Mississippi, the Republican margins will be maintained pretty much as they are.  If the new legislature is given the opportunity to draw the boundaries, for sure.  If they are court ordered, I still don't see much advantage for the Democrats there as black majority districts would be protected leaving the Republican districts in tact.

By January next year there will be -I think- 8 white Democrats in the Senate, and around 20 in the House.  With the Republican takeover of the legislature and subsequent redistricting next year, I fully expect their current margins in both houses padded to such an extent as to make any possible comeback by Mississippi Democrats improbable and extremely difficult.  I would not be surprised if the final totals in the Senate results in a 35:17 GOP majority, and a 75:47 margin in the House.  As in Georgia, Alabama, and elsewhere in the Deep South, around 90% of all elected Democrats in Mississippi will be African-American.  

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It's official: the GOP has captured the Mississippi House with 62 seats -with two more still undecided. 

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I'll have one more update prior to the election, once the final fundraising reports come out. Basically I see it as a tossup. It's really hard to predict, though, since there's no polling.

With an evenly split Senate and a two-thirds majority in the House of Delegates, do you think the Virginia Republican Party would have better off in the Senate if they had decided to hold off redistricting until next year?  Would they have won an outright majority in the Senate with the old districts?