R-Oklahoma: State grows even more red

Meantime, Republicans gathered for watch parties had much to celebrate Tuesday yet had to return home knowing that the biggest prize had eluded them. Obama will be in situ at the White House for another four years.

Partisans in both camps left the watch parties with mixed feelings, but Republicans had more to celebrate. What's been called the reddest of the red states turned from bright red to glow-in-the-dark red:

• For the first time in history, the Legislature, every statewide office and the entire congressional delegation is in the Republican camp. The state has had two of the three distinctions before but not all of them at once.

• Party registration continues a historic slide from Democratic dominance to a Republican majority. Within the next two years, the registration advantage may flip from blue to red.

• For the third straight presidential election, every single county in Oklahoma supported the Republican nominee. Obama got only 33 percent of the vote in Oklahoma, down by more than a percentage point from his abysmal 2008 showing. In both elections, Democrats had a party registration advantage; in both elections, many registered Democrats joined Republicans in rejecting Obama.

• Republican dominance of the Legislature, already pronounced, grew even stronger with Tuesday's results. The only consolation prize for Democrats is that intraparty squabbles among Republicans offer an opportunity for coalition building.

• Hope for Democrats in two years to regain some statewide offices and increase membership in the Legislature was potentially quashed by Obama's victory. Democratic candidates in 2014 can still be tied to Obama by Republican candidates bent on nationalizing the election. It worked in 2010.