Although the marquee races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and governorships deserve most of our attention tonight, don’t discount the importance of down-ballot races and referenda. State legislatures, for example, have generally been an arena of substantial Republican gains and conservative policy victories since the beginning of the century. Even before today’s voting, the GOP was in its strongest position at the state level in many decades. There were more Republican state lawmakers nationwide (3,836) than Democrats (3,448), a situation that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. The GOP controlled 57 of the nation’s partisan legislative chambers, compared to the Democrats’ 41 chambers (Nebraska’s legislature is nonpartisan and unicameral). Indeed, in a majority of states (27) Republicans hold majorities in both legislative chambers, offering them a clear path to enacting tax cuts, regulatory reforms, school choice, social legislation, and a host of other conservative priorities. In turn, in most of these states the party also holds the governorship, ensuring that such policies won’t be vetoed and will be implemented as intended. Democrats have unified control of only 19 legislatures.

For the GOP to duplicate its most spectacular legislative gains – those in 1994 and 2010 – would be impossible this year. Most of the party’s best opportunities were already seized four years ago. Still, Democrats recovered some ground in 2012 that could be Republican again, and there remain a few holdout chambers that Republicans have fallen just short of clinching in past cycles despite concerted efforts. Here are the main battlegrounds in state legislatures tonight:

The two best opportunities for Republicans have quite different histories. The New Hampshire House has been flipping back and forth lately. It flipped blue in 2012 and might go back red tonight. In West Virginia, however, I don’t believe the GOP has ever controlled its state house. That could actually happen this year, particularly given the strong vote for Senator-elect Shelley Moore Capito. Other reasonable pick-up options for the Republicans this cycle are the senates in Nevada, Colorado, and Iowa, plus the house in New Mexico. They hope to make gains, at least, in the state houses of Colorado and Minnesota and the state senates of Maine and Oregon. For their part, the Democrats are hoping to win additional seats in the New York Senate, which technically has a Democratic majority already but is in fact controlled by a Republican-dissent Dem coalition. They also dream of recapturing the Arkansas House, lost to the GOP in 2012, although given what’s happening at the top of the ticket in the state that seems improbable. The Dems are playing for gains, at least, in both of North Carolina’s chambers as well as in the Iowa House and the senates in Wisconsin and Washington.

Commentators have frequently pointed out that if Republicans win more than a dozen more seats in the U.S. House, they will have a historic edge there. Well, something similar could happen if the anti-Obama, anti-incumbency feelings evident in the 2014 electorate work to the advantage of Republican candidates in these targeted legislative battlegrounds. I will have more later as the returns start coming in.