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• Ten years ago, for instance, all four senators from the Dakotas were Democrats. This year, Democrats are fighting an uphill battle to keep the number from falling to one.
• Similarly in Arkansas, a two-term Democratic senator got clobbered in 2010. The state's last remaining congressional Democrat-- Sen. Mark Pryor-- is in an intense struggle for re-election.
• In West Virginia, Democrats privately hold out little hope of keeping the seat that retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller held for 30 years. In Montana they will be hard-pressed to keep the Senate seat Max Baucus had for 35 years.
• All these states vote strongly Republican in presidential races. Three of them have begun bringing their Senate voting more closely in line, and Republicans hope Montana and West Virginia will follow suit.
• "The small-state bias of the Senate definitely gives Republicans the advantage," said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. "Most of the least-populous states are solidly or leaning Republican," he said, while "the biggest states mostly lean Democratic."
• This trend has its greatest impact in the Senate, which ignores the "one person, one vote" concept that largely drives House and presidential elections. Every state gets two senators. That means Wyoming residents have 65 times more Senate representation than do Californians.
• Theoretically, a majority of senators could control the chamber while representing 18 percent of Americans. That won't happen. But there are plenty of examples of majority sentiment being thwarted, and there may be more in the future.
• President Barack Obama's 2013 bid to tighten background checks on gun buyers was supported by senators representing 62 percent of the U.S. population. They included both senators from California, New York and Illinois. But partly because of smaller states' conservative leanings -- and partly because of filibuster rules that protect the minority even more -- 46 senators representing 38 percent of Americans killed the measure.
• The Obama-backed "Dream Act" -- which would have granted legal status to millions of immigrants who entered the country illegally as children -- met a similar fate in 2010. Fifty-six senators representing 61.6 of the nation's population voted for it, but it failed.
• The right to filibuster -- which requires 60 votes to pass many measures in the 100-member Senate -- killed these measures. But it does not explain the huge disparity in population represented by senators on the winning and losing sides.
• It's entirely possible for senators representing more than half of all Americans to lose simple-majority votes. Last year, only 40 senators backed California Sen. Di

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