The greatest significance of the Republican wave election of 2010 was not the new majority it produced in the U.S. House. Even greater was its effects down ballot.

Prior to that election, Republicans had controlled only 37 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers (including Nebraska’s unicameral Legislature, whose members are nonpartisan in name only). When the dust settled, they controlled 55. This didn’t just create the possibility of making conservative policy at the state level. It also ended decades of Democratic dominance in the all-important redistricting process.