With Democrats nursing a 4-seat lead in the Louisiana State Senate and a 1-seat lead in the State House, the three legislative special elections this past Saturday had statewide implications. But despite state Republicans making a serious run at all three seats over the weekend, Democrats pitched a shutout in their two open seats, preventing any Republican advance in the Legislature.

Louisiana legislative elections use a unique, non-partisan primary system where the top two vote-getters move on to a runoff election. In both open Democratic seats – the New Orleans based 97th House District and the 24th Senate District based in Opelousas and northern Lafayette – all runoff participants will be Democrats.

The Senate runoff will be the more interesting of the two, featuring members of two famous local political families, Patricia “Pat” Cravins and State Representative Elbert L. Guillory. Rep. Guillory finished first on Saturday, but the Cravins Family has a deep well of support in the district, making the runoff a true tossup. In New Orleans, Democrats Jared Brossett and Leroy Doucette will compete in the runoff for the 97th House District.

The third seat, the Republican-held 16th Senate District anchored in the southeast suburbs of Baton Rouge, stayed in Republican hands. The result was disappointing but expected in one of the toughest districts in the state for Democrats. I should know – I worked that territory for a special congressional election in 2008, and it would have taken an exceptional Democrat to win or even come close.

With the legislature so close in Louisiana, every seat counts. Even without gaining the 16th Senate seat, state Democrats should be proud that they beat back two Republican challenges so soundly this weekend.

As hard as it is to believe, more than two week have already passed since the Election.

That doesn't, however, mean that the results are final everywhere.

For instance, this week in Texas, Democrat Bob Romano filed paperwork for a formal recount of the votes in his race for House District 150.

He is currently 20 votes down, and if he were to finish ahead of the GOP incumbent, Democrats would be able to force a tie in the chamber.

We also know of results still being contested in Washington, Indiana, and Montana. Today we just heard about another race being finalized in North Carolina.

As soon as the final recounts get settled, we'll be posting a new version of our chart outlining chamber margins.

Keep your eyes open.

We're beginning to analyze the impact of our DLCCWeb program. We had around 350 campaigns sign up, of which a little more than 300 were active candidates in this election (the rest were caucus organizations or candidates with races in 2009 and 2010 who wanted to get a jump on things).

Some fast facts:

1) We viewed this service as something for all Democratic legislative candidates -- from the challenger with the longest odds to the incumbent without opposition. This year, many of those who took advantage of the program were in fact challengers. Even still, more than half of our candidates won their races.

2) We had active victors in states stretching from Alaska (http://scottforalaska.com/) to Kansas (http://jimwardforkansas.org) to Texas (http://solomonortizjr.com) and plenty of places in between. In many ways DLCCWeb represents the Long Tail of political campaign services.

3) These DLCCWeb candidates put up some serious numbers online. They generated 13,903,917 total hits to their websites, sent out nearly 3 million emails, and raised well over $400,000.

In 2008, the DLCC tried something new.

For the first time, we published a list of legislative candidates who were running what we believed to be essential races. This was never a list of people who were sure to win -- these were the races that we believed needed national attention.

Our friends and allies did their part. We heard from one supporter, for instance, who sent campaigns a check to pay for postage. Local bloggers promoted these candidates and then the press wrote stories putting these candidates in the spotlight. And of course more a thousand of you offered suggestions about additional campaigns that needed our support.

From the start, we had big hopes for this program. And now, we're happy to report that results on Election Day were very successful.

Thirty of our Essential candidates won their races -- fully 55 percent of our list. Among them were those winning important races in Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Delaware, and Nevada -- all places where Democrats were able to win new legislative majorities.

We are all to aware that these victories would not have been possible without the support of friends like you. Thank you, once again, for all that you do.

Throughout this year, New Hampshire was a state that we watched closely. On Election Day, the Granite State offered plenty of good news, but one statistic in particular caught my eye.

In addition to maintaining Democratic majorities in both the state house and state senate, the voters of New Hampshire chose to make a bit of history.

For the first time ever, women have gained the majority in a legislative chamber.

After Tuesday’s election, thirteen of the twenty-four state Senate seats in New Hampshire are now occupied by women. Peggy Gilmore (District 12), Bette Lasky (District 13) and Amanda Merrill (District 21) beat out their Republican opponents to join the eight Democratic female incumbents (and two Republican women) in the upper chamber.

This post was written by Danielle Horowtiz, a Klindt/Dye Intern for the 2008 Fall Semester.

Last night showed the strength of our nation's Democratic leaders all the way up and down the ticket.

After the gains we made in each of the past five elections, Republicans were saying that this might be their year, and it simply wasn't.

We controlled 57 chambers going into last night -- we have at least 60 now.

As I mentioned very early this morning, we won new majorities in the Delaware House, Ohio House, Wisconsin House, New York Senate, and the Nevada Senate.

We defeated reelection bids by Republican Speakers in Delaware, and now, it looks like Utah.

The Alaska senate has moved into a tie.

We made serious gains in two chambers we originally thought we'd be hard pressed to defend -- the Michigan House and Oregon House.

And we successfully defended chambers Iowa, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Colorado.

We're still waiting on results in the Montana House (we were down 49/50/1), Texas House (potential tie).

Our victories last night are a testament to the hard work, dedication, and skill of our state Democratic lawmakers all over the country.

Democrats will emerge from this election holding majorities in at least 60 of the nation's 98 partisan legislative chambers.

Tonight, it is clear that Democrats won new majorities in the Delaware House, Ohio House, Wisconsin Assembly, New York Senate, and the Nevada Senate.

Votes are also still being counted in several states which offer Democrats further opportunities for gains.

Democratic legislators have made net gains in each election since 2003.

Heading into tonight, Democrats only needed to win one seat to gain control of the Nevada senate.

We had targeted two districts.

As of 2:45 EST, I can report that Democrats won both these races to secure a majority in the upper chamber.

Heading into Election Night, Oregon was a state that we were watching closely.

A switch of just one seat would have left the Oregon House of Representatives tied and two seats would have given the Republicans control.

Tonight, Democrats have a lot to celebrate.

It looks like we've made a net gain of eight seats, which gives us a new super-majority in the lower chamber.

We just got some great news.

At this point, we've picked up at least three seats in the Wisconsin Assembly, and there is a possibility for more gains as well.

It's an historic night. These victories will give us control of both chambers.