17 interesting facts about the midterms, and 3 uninteresting ones

(Win McNamee / Getty)

• There will be Republican governors in at least 31 states.
• Democrats will have unified control of just 7 state governments, the lowest number since 1860.
• If Republicans win just 4 of the remaining 14 uncalled House seats, they'll have their widest majority in the chamber since the presidency of Herbert Hoover.
• With the defeat of John Barrow of Georgia, there are no longer any white Democrats from the Deep South in the House.
• The average Senate poll conducted in the campaign's last three weeks was skewed against Republicans by 4 points, according to FiveThirtyEight's analysis.
• Obama has lost more House seats during his tenure than any president since Harry Truman.

Demographic firsts

• Tim Scott of South Carolina became the first directly elected black Southern senator in US history, and Mia Love of Utah became the first black female Republican ever elected to Congress.
• For the first time ever, there will be 100 women in Congress.
• 30-year old Elise Stefanik, elected to a US House seat in New York, will become the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress.
• Greg Abbott of Texas will become the first US governor in a wheelchair since the 1980s.
• Saira Blair of West Virginia, who's only 18 years old, will become the youngest state legislator in the US.

Ballot initiative outcomes

A marijuana plant. (Shutterstock)

• Minimum wage increases have been on state ballots 15 times since 2002. They've passed every time.
• Alaska became the first red state, and the fourth state overall, to vote to legalize recreational marijuana. (Earlier in the night, Oregon became the third. Washington DC, though not a state, joined them.)
• Ballot initiatives to require labeling of foods with genetically modified organisms failed easily in Colorado, and narrowly in Oregon.
• Abortion opponents have lost five out of five votes on "personhood" initiatives.

Who turned out?

(Lisa F. Young / Shutterstock)