You’re reading an all-election edition of Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
>218 House seats
We haven’t yet landed on the exact number that history will record, but Democrats last night won a majority in the House of Representatives’s 435 seats. As I write this Wednesday morning, CNN has given the Democrats 222 seats, while ABC News has given them 223. But in any case, it will be more than 218. There are about two dozen seats yet to be called. [ABC News]
56.7 percent
Voters cast 44.7 million votes for Democratic Senate candidates and 32.9 million votes for Republican Senate candidates — in other words 57 percent of Senate votes went for Democrats. But given how states and cities and stuff work, and which of the former happened to be up for election this year, this gap translated into at least a two-seat gain for Republicans. Republicans will have a majority in the upper chamber, and are currently sitting on 51 senators with several races yet to be called. [The New York Times]
At least 7 governorships
Democrats flipped at least seven governorships from red to blue last night: Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin. No governorships flipped the other direction. [FiveThirtyEight]
More than 90 women
Women won a record number of seats in the House — at least 90 as of this morning. That includes the first two Muslim women to ever serve in the chamber. Tennessee elected its first female senator and Massachusetts elected its first black congresswoman. Colorado elected the country’s first openly gay male governor. Kansas and New Mexico elected the U.S.’s first Native American congresswomen. Maine got its first woman governor. Iowa elected its first congresswoman. [Associated Press, CBS News]
1.4 million convicted felons
Yesterday’ss elections will also have a meta-impact on future elections themselves. First, in Florida, voters passed Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to more than 1 million previously convicted felons. The measure needed 60 percent of the vote to pass and its passage could “shift Florida’s future political climate.” [ABC News]
71 percent of the vote
And second, two amendments concerning the operation of elections in Colorado passed with about 71 percent of the vote each. Amendments Y and Z (it’s frankly refreshing to see a lettered system of amendments, isn’t it?) proposed independent commissions draw electoral districts for legislators there. The Colorado legislature itself currently draws the congressional districts. [Colorado Public Radio]
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