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Republican-dominated Legislature passed the governor's plans for merit pay for teachers and incentive grants for large industrial projects, but Democrats and their political allies were able to force votes and defeat both issues in Tuesday's election.
• "It seems that every time we refer something or push something on the ballot, the public overwhelmingly agrees with us," South Dakota Democratic Party Chairman Ben Nesselhuf said. "We're still defining, I think, the party in the minds of a lot of voters, and that's an ongoing goal."
• Republicans, meanwhile, expressed confidence that their candidates would prevail because they had worked with Daugaard to balance the state budget.
• For the past two years, Republicans have outnumbered Democrats 30-5 in the Senate and 50-19 in the House. One House representative was an independent affiliated with the Republican Party.
• Over the next two years, the GOP will have at least 25 seats in the Senate and 46 in the House.
• The last time Democrats controlled a South Dakota legislative chamber was during the two-year term after the 1992 election, when they won 20 seats in the Senate. Republicans had 15.
• This year's election was the first using new district maps lawmakers drew last year based on the 2010 census. Lawmakers draw new boundaries once each decade to account for population changes.
• Democrats claimed the GOP-dominated Legislature packed some districts with Republican voters so Democrats would have little chance of winning.
• "It's frankly understandable how this wound up being a status quo election," Nesselhuf said. "After redistricting now, there are only five districts where there are more Democrats than Republicans, and 30 going the other way. They did a good job drawing lines.
• Republicans said the new district boundaries were fair and put some incumbent GOP lawmakers at risk.
• Rave said he expects the next legislative session in January to feature plenty of education talk, as state lawmakers work with teachers to implement pieces of Gov. Dennis Daugaard's education plan.
• He said voters indicated Tuesday that they clearly don't want a sales tax boost to fund education, but they do want the issue addressed and the state is now in a better position to fund elementary and secondary programs.
• "We always say we're going to do something for education and make some changes," Rave said. "I've been there 10 years and this is the first time we've ever done anything of any real substance."

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