THE LAST MERCURY ASTRONAUT:

[T]he bigger story, which FiveThirtyEight's Harry Enten noticed: In all 33 Senate races decided on Election Day, the winner was from the same party as the presidential candidate who carried the state. If, as expected, Republican John Kennedy wins the Louisiana runoff, it will be 34 out of 34. That did not happen in any of the 25 previous presidential elections since the 17th Amendment established popular election to the Senate--not even in 1920.

A similar pattern holds in the House. All 30 of the states Trump carried (assuming he holds on in still-uncalled Michigan) will have majority-Republican House delegations in the new Congress. Of the 20 states Mrs. Clinton carried, 17 House delegations will be majority-Democrat. Two (Colorado and Virginia) will be majority-Republican. Maine will be evenly split, with one representative from each party, and Trump took one electoral vote there, from the Second District of Republican Bruce Poliquin.

The Senate trend does not bode well for Schumer's hope of becoming majority leader. In 2012, Democrats won Senate races in five states Mitt Romney carried: Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia. (Republicans took one seat in a state President Obama carried, Nevada.) Those seats are up in 2018, as are Democratic seats in the Trump states of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

If 2018 is a repeat of 2016--that is, if all Trump states elect Republican senators and all Clinton states elect Democratic ones--Republicans will gain nine seats, giving them a total of 61 (or 60 in the event of a Louisiana surprise), a supermajority sufficient to stop a filibuster, assuming filibusters still exist, more on which below.

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