Not so bad for Republicans

Lately, it's seemed as though everything cuts in favor of the left. Obama gets away with everything. The nation re-elected a man who is more or less a complete fabrication. No one cares. At one level, it looks like the good times keep rollin' for the Democratic Party. Upon closer inspection however, quite the opposite is true. This article, from Politico, focuses on two points: redistricting and the majority of state governments run by Republicans.

Democrats fell far short of winning the House in 2012, an otherwise banner year for the party, and many are privately glum about taking back the chamber in 2014. 

But that grim immediate outlook raises a far more troubling longer-term prospect for Democrats: that the newly drawn congressional lines have tilted the electoral playing field so decisively in the GOP’s favor that the party could control the House through 2020. ... 

But strategists in both parties say they are still reckoning with the long-term implications of Democrats’ disastrous performance in 2010. Not only did they lose the House that year, but setbacks in state capitals meant that Republicans controlled the once-a-decade process of line drawing in 213 districts — nearly five times the number of districts Democrats had oversight over. And Republicans used that power with a vengeance.