Election 2010: Republican Senate Results Are Better Than They Appear...

Jennifer Rubin tells us why:

The prospect of an eight or nine or 10 Senate-seat pickup for the GOP has skewed the punditry. You have to keep in mind that the whole House was up for re-election, but the entire Senate wasn’t. Only 37 seats were at issue. Let’s say Ken Buck pulls through. The percentage of seats picked up by the GOP would then be 18.9 percent (seven of 37). In the context of the whole House, this would be the equivalent of an 83-seat pickup. Put differently, given the number of seats up and the fact that there were so many Blue States in play, the GOP’s haul is by any measure an extraordinary achievement. And in the Senate, if Lisa Murkowski wins and caucuses with the GOP, there won’t be single lost seat for the Republicans.

It looks like Buck is toast, but if Rossi pulls through in Washington, Rubin's numbers hit the mark. But even if Patty Murray keeps her day job, the Republicans will have taken 16% of the seats available (again, while holding all of their own), which would translate to approximately a 72-seat pickup in the House. Pretty close to where we'll end up; once the dust settles, it appears as if the Republicans are looking at 67-70 sweet new seats...

So the wave was uniform, the numbers just aren't' as impressive as the 60+ we're seeing in the House, and complete control was not attained. But remember - these six victories were almost all forays into enemy ( blue) territory, operations completed successfully while giving up no ground on the home front.

Tell a battlefield commander he could pick up 16% of his "enemy's" territory (with a hat tip to Baracky on that one!) while not losing a man, and he'd jump at the chance. Just wait until the next wave election - scheduled for November 2012 - when a lot of the fighting will be done on much, much friendlier ground...