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Obama lost the state by 26 percentage points.
• If states became totally consistent in partisan voting behavior -- that is, if every state either voted Republican for president and both its senators, or voted Democratic for president and both senators -- Republicans would have to do a little better in presidential elections to control the Senate. Obama won 28 states in 2008, and 26 in his re-election.
• University of Maryland political scientist Frances Lee said liberal voters practice "natural gerrymandering" by concentrating in urban areas.
• That leaves vast stretches of America dominated by conservatives. They spread themselves among many House districts and many small and medium-density states, giving Republicans the "small-state advantage."
• "The Senate is tilted against the Democratic Party in its makeup," Lee said, but Democrats have the majority because they've "overperformed," with ample help from Republican mistakes in 2010 and 2012.
• Republicans say they won't make those mistakes this year.
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Youngest female SD representative looks to Senate
NORA HERTEL, Associated Press
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- One of the youngest females ever elected to the South Dakota Legislature hopes to move to the Senate after two terms in the House.
• Rep. Jenna Haggar, a Sioux Falls Republican, is running to fill a seat vacated by Sen. Shantel Krebs. Haggar will face a Democratic candidate Michael Schultz in the general election.
• "Jenna's a formidable candidate. In the past she's knocked on every door in her district," said Dave Roetman, interim executive director with the South Dakota Republican Party. He said he wore out a pair of shoes helping her do that as a volunteer with her campaign in 2012.
• Haggar didn't think she had a good chance of winning when she first ran for office four years ago. She was 24, homeschooled and without a college education.
• Her father encouraged her to run, because the Democrat incumbents didn't have challengers. So Haggar ran as an independent, joining the race after the deadline for primary petitions.
• "Even up to the few months before I decided to run for office, I had no intention of becoming a legislator," Haggar said.
• She and her family had been involved in congressional campaigns and volunteered in the community and church while she was growing up.
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