More election facts: Best GOP year since '66, or '56, or '38, or '28 ...

Historical notes about Tuesday's red wave:




1. Ron Johnson’s 52% was the best performance by a Republican Senate candidate in Wisconsin since, brace yourself … 1956.



2. Johnson will be only the second Republican to serve in the Senate from Wisconsin since the Kennedy Administration, the third since Joe McCarthy, and the fourth since the 1930s.



3. Republicans gained two U.S. House seats in Wisconsin for the first time since 1966.



4. I couldn’t find any other time in the last 50 years that one party in Wisconsin has gained or lost three seats in Congress. It happened Tuesday when Republicans picked up two U.S. House seats and a Senate seat.



5. According to the Wisconsin GOP, the 14 state Assembly seats the party gained is the most since 1938. (We warned you on election day to remember 1938). The four state Senate seats the party gained is the most since 1980.



These additional factoids come from UW-Madison political science chair John Coleman:



1. Republicans nationally have their most state legislative seats since 1928 (about 3,920, with some still too close to call; that’s 53% of all the legislative seats in the country).



2. Republicans gained 19 state legislative chambers across the country, with four additional chambers still up in the air but potential pickups.



3. Democrats now control only 38% of the state legislative seats in the Midwest; their worst since 1956.



4. The GOP gain of 680 legislative seats nationally (across lower and upper houses) was the most by either party since 1966.



5. Republicans will control at least 55 chambers, their most since 1952.



6. Democrats gained seats in only one state lower chamber (Delaware) and five upper chambers (Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania).



7. In the battle for Congress, 49 Democratic House incumbents and only two Republican incumbents were defeated. An additional 14 open seats held by Democrats were picked up by Republicans; only one open seat flipped from Republican to Democrat.



8. Wisconsin's Russ Feingold was one of only two incumbent Democrats in the Senate to be defeated along with Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln; no GOP senators lost. Four open seats in the Senate switched from Democrat to Republican.