Sorry to burst your bubble but cinyc's last sentence nailed it. It doesn't hurt that's Republicans had three sacrificial lambs for Governor and Senate.
How is losing six House seats in one state anything other than horrible? The last time Democrats lost that many seats in the state was 1946 and that is when the state had far more seats to lose.
Democrats didn't lose any seats they held in 2005. They still hold NY-23.
They lost many seats that they should have been able to hold like NY-13, NY-19 and NY-25. NY-29 was arguably the only seat that they should have lost based on statewide results.
NY-13, NY-19 and NY-29 are all R+ PVI seats that Republicans should win in anything but a bad year for them. They are traditionally Republican seats. 2006 and 2008 were the outliers in those districts, not 2010. Had Fossella not been embroiled in a mistress scandal, NY-13 would have never been lost at all in the first place.
NY-25 is a D+3 district, but was traditionally held by Republicans until 2008. 2010 arguably was a bit of a fluke there - but, on the other hand, if Republicans had their best year since 1894 in New York, they would have picked up NY-01, NY-23 and one or more of NY-02, NY-04, NY-09, NY-22 and NY-27, too. That they didn't and ended up just winning back traditionally Republican seats tells me that, in New York, 2010 was a regression back to the Republican mean, not the Republicans' best year since 1894.
This. Something a lot of people forget about 2010 is that Republicans were starting from a low point, particularly in states like New York. "+63 seats!" sounds like a lot, but consider that the Republicans won more than that in 1938. That wasn't due to the Republicans being strong - in fact they still ended up fairly deeply in the minority - it was just due to reversion to the mean from extraordinary Democratic gains.
While it is true that Republicans hold more House seats than any time since 1946, this is substantially due to Southern realignment. For New York alone, the current proportion of Republican House members is below the historical average.
Poll
