Welcome to 2016. This promises to be an exciting — if not scary — political year.

Nationally, we'll be electing Barack Obama's successor and 34 of the seats in the U.S. Senate are up — 10 Dems and 24 Republicans, one of them being Wisconsin's own Ron Johnson. And, of course, at stake are all the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, many of the districts so gerrymandered by partisan state politicians that there's little chance current occupants will face meaningful races.

Same is true of the state Assembly here in Wisconsin. The questionable redistricting following the 2010 census carved out safe districts for most incumbents and chances of changing the current 63-36 Republican majority are slim at best. The Senate, however, could be a different story; 16 of the 33 seats are up for election, with the incumbents evenly divided between the two parties.

What makes 2016 particularly interesting, though, are a couple of variables. Presidential elections in Wisconsin, at least, bring out a significantly higher percentage of Democratic voters than the typical off-year election. That could spell trouble for a far-right Republican like Ron Johnson and could perhaps be a deciding factor in some of the state Senate races.