While there are still a number of House and Senate races unsettled, there is a great deal of election data available to demonstrate the advantage that the two political parties have in maintaining their stranglehold on control of Congress.  Congressional  incumbents crushed the challengers.  To illustrate the power of incumbency, in Oregon, the Democratic challenger beat the Republican incumbent U.S. Senator (Gordon Smith).  It was reported that this was the first defeat of an incumbent lawmaker in Oregon since 1968 (40 years ago).   As of today’s date, here are some election results.

 

-Out of a total of 435 seats in the House, 398 incumbents (239 Democrats and 159 Republicans) have been re-elected to the House.

 

-In 51 congressional districts across the country, House incumbents (36 Democrats and 15 Republicans) ran unopposed.  Voters had no choice in these districts.

 

-Only 12 Democratic challengers defeated incumbent Republicans and only 4 Republican challengers defeated incumbent Democrats.

 

-In districts with open seats, 13 Democrats and 15 Republicans won seats.  There was no real change in the balance of power here because the majority of winners  simply replaced someone of the same party that previously held the seat.

 

-In the Senate races, it looks like the Democrats have gained 6 seats and have a good chance of winning one or more of the three Senate races that are unsettled.

 

-When the dust settles on this election, it appears that the Democrats will have picked up in excess of 20 seats in the House and up to 9 seats in the Senate.

 

Both political parties are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief.  Based upon the downward spiral that the country has taken these last eight years, the Democrats could have emerged with a much larger congressional majority and the Republicans could have been left with such a small minority in the Congress that they would have virtually no influence  in shaping legislation.