(Continued from page 18)

anne Feinstein's bid to regulate assault weapons. But they represented nearly 52 percent of the population.
• Of course, some low-population states lean Democratic. They, too, are tending to align their Senate votes with their presidential votes, counteracting the GOP progress.
• John Chafee was a Republican senator from Rhode Island from 1976 to 1999. Republicans, or a Republican-turned-independent, held one of Vermont's Senate seats from 1857 through 2006. For 26 years ending in 1995, Oregon was represented by two moderate-to-liberal Republican senators, Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood.
• Similar scenarios are unlikely today. Those states now vote solidly Democratic in Senate and presidential races, and such moderate Republicans have harder times winning GOP primaries.
• More often than not, small-population states lean conservative, especially in the West. And most big states lean Democratic, with Texas being the glaring exception.
• Obama became president by carrying 13 of the 15 most populous states in 2008, and 11 in his re-election. He lost 20 of the remaining 35 states in both elections.
• The Senate's "small-state advantage" dates to 1787. That's when the "Great Compromise" apportioned House seats by population, while giving each state two senators. Political parties didn't exist then.
• Today, if one party can gain a decided edge in small states, it can enjoy disproportionate Senate power, even if it's outmatched in presidential elections. Republicans seem to be gaining such an edge, but it's unclear it will continue.
• Gary C. Jacobson tracks these trends as a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. In the last election, he said, the alignment of state-level voting for president and for senator was the highest since the 1950s.
• In other words, states that vote Republican for president are increasingly likely to send two Republicans to the Senate. The mirror image is true for Democrats.
• Looking at this year's Senate races, Jacobson said, Democrats' "only hope is that this trend isn't continuing," because they are defending seats in seven states Obama lost in 2012. Of those seven states, only North Carolina ranks among the nation's 20 most populous.
• Republicans need to gain six Senate seats to control the chamber.
• One encouraging sign for Republicans is the intensity with which some small states are turning to the GOP. Republican John Thune of South Dakota narrowly defeated Sen. Tom Daschle -- then the Senate Democratic leader -- in 2004. When Thune sought re-election six years later, he ran unopposed.
• West Virginia voted Democratic for president as recently as 1996. In 2012,

(Continued on page 20)