House Republicans picked up two additional seats this week, winning with "tea party"-backed candidates in New York and Texas to give the party a net gain of 63 seats with two races still undecided.
With a well-funded, centrist Houston mayor running for governor at the top of the ballot, Texas Democrats were hopeful that the party would defy expectations in the 2010 midterm elections and knock off the nation's second-longest-serving governor in one of the nation's reddest states.
Dear Sgt. Shaft:
