For House Democrats, Election Day was the gift that has kept on giving. Democrat T.J. Cox's upset defeat of GOP Rep. David Valadao (CA-21) in California's Central Valley brings Democrats to an overall gain of 40 seats, at the very upper end of our forecast. With every race now decided (NC-09 is pending certification but looks certain to stay Republican), Democrats have won 235 seats to Republicans' 200. Democrats won over 53 percent of all votes cast for House compared to 45 percent for Republicans. To put this wave in perspective, Republicans' margin over Democrats was seven percent in both 1994 and 2010, and Democrats won the national House vote by eight points in 2006. Right now, Democrats lead the House vote by 8.4 percent and make up 62 of the 93 members of the freshman class. As bad as this outcome was for Republicans, it could've been worse: there's strong evidence November's universally high, historic midterm turnout actually aided Republicans more than Democrats. For example, on November 6, GOP Rep. Troy Balderson (OH-12) received about 68,000 more votes than
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