Go ahead and call it a wave. Heading into Election Day at The Cook Political Report, we expected a Republican gain of five to seven Senate seats and noted it was more likely to be on the higher end of that range than the lower. As of now, it looks as if the GOP has gained seven seats, but that could grow to as many as nine once all of the votes are counted in Alaska—which could take a week or two—and pending a Dec. 6 runoff election in Louisiana.
In the House, we were expecting a Republican gain of six to 12 seats, but we had noted that slightly higher gains were not out of the question. Currently, it looks like the GOP has achieved a net gain of 16 House seats—although that could go up or down by a few—bringing Republicans to their highest number of representatives since World War II. And it builds on their 63-seat gain in 2010 (eight of those, however, shifted back to the Democrats in 2012).
We expected Democrats to pick up two
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