The GOP now holds supermajorities across the South and Great Plains, and will slash spending and fight Obama at every turn.
In the two weeks since the election, the general consensus has been that Republicans got hammered. From Mitt Romney's Election Day collapse to the party's failure to take back the Senate and prevent ballot initiatives legalizing same-sex marriage, Republicans took big hits up and down the ballot.
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But the results actually weren't all bad for the GOP. AP reporter David Lieb points out that the Republican supermajorities swept statehouses across the South and Great Plains states, ushering in powerful one-party governments that are likely to make major tax cuts, slash spending to public education and social programs, and resist the implementation of President Obama's health-care reform legislation at every turn.
According to Lieb, Republicans gained or expanded their supermajorities in North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Georgia. (To be fair, blue states also went bluer too, with Democrats dominating the statehouse races in California, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.)