AT A rally in Massachusetts for Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for governor, a supporter confided to The Economist that perhaps Charlie Baker, her Republican opponent, would be better for the economy. That may explain why Mr Baker (pictured), a moderate Republican, managed to win even in one of America’s most Democratic states, following in the footsteps of Mitt Romney, who was a reformist Republican governor there before running for president. It also suggests that, for the Republican Party, the results of the governors’ races may be even more cheering than retaking the Senate.

Before the election, polls suggested that voters would toss out several Republican governors. Yet they sacked only one, in Pennsylvania, where a uniquely bungling incumbent, Tom Corbett, lost to Tom Wolf, a serenely smiling local businessman. (Another Republican incumbent, Sean Parnell in Alaska, seems likely to lose to an independent, Bill Walker, when the count is finished.) Instead, the Democrats faced a rout—losing in several reliably blue states, including Illinois and Maryland as well as Massachusetts. States that the Democrats had hoped they might take—Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine—all stayed solidly Republican.

Painting the map redder

The result is that, although America remains gridlocked at the federal level, at state level Republicans are in charge, says Tim Storey, a political scientist at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Republicans now control 29 state legislatures, holding both chambers—two more than they did, and the most they have since the 1920s (see table). Several Democratic governors who were re-elected now find themselves with Republican legislative chambers. In Colorado John Hickenlooper, who has passed strong gun-control measures, held on narrowly, but his party appears to have lost the state senate. In New York too, Republicans took the state senate despite the efforts and money of New York City’s mayor Bill de Blasio.