NEW YORK TIMES: Republicans won control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, riding a powerful wave of voter discontent as they dealt a setback to President Obama two years after his triumphal victory. And while the G.O.P. made strong gains in the Senate, Democrats were positioned to maintain their control of that chamber. Democrats were dealt significant losses, particularly in the House, where Republicans recorded a series of wins from New Hampshire to Virginia and Indiana to Florida, knocking out well-established incumbents and freshmen alike, all of whom struggled to overcome opposition to the Democratic Party’s agenda. Representative John A. Boehner, the House Republican leader, declared that his party had taken control of the House in a speech shortly before midnight Eastern time. “The American people’s voice was heard at the ballot box,” he said in declaring victory. “For far too long Washington has been doing what’s best for Washington, not what’s best for the American people. Tonight, that begins to change. MORE
RELATED: The questions that liberals and Democrats will be asking themselves tomorrow morning. Was it all worthwhile? Was the 111th 
Congress’s flurry of legislative activity worth the backlash it helped create? […] Today, Ezra Klein made the case that the answer for liberals should be yes. A lot of Democratic politicians will lose their jobs tonight, he conceded. But “if you see the point of politics as actually getting things done,” rather than just trying to preserve a majority for as many years as possible, “the last two years, for Democrats, have been a stunning, historic success. Whatever else you can say about the 111th Congress, it got things done … if [its members] failed as politicians, they succeeded as legislators. And legislating is, at least in theory, what they came to Washington to do.” This is a powerful argument. Majorities come and go; big legislative achievements (and say what you will about the 111th Congress, but it wasn’t afraid to go big) can last a long, long time. MORE
RELATED: The Associated Press is projecting that the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, will survive a high-profile re-election campaign in Nevada against Sharron Angle, a Tea Party-backed Republican. MORE
RELATED: A clear bright spot for Democrats tonight (other than Harry Reid holding on) was California, where Jerry Brown won his governor’s race against Meg Whitman and Sen. Barbara Boxer staved off a challenge from Carly Fiorina. MORE
RELATED: Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman, defeated Representative Joe Sestak, a Democrat, on Tuesday in a razor-thin Senate race in Pennsylvania that was not called for hours after polls closed. With almost all of the votes in, Mr. Toomey, a conservative who is also the former president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, had 51 percent of the vote, providing the capstone to what turned out to be a very successful midterm election for Republicans in Pennsylvania. MORE
RELATED: [Christine] O’Donnell surely has a future ahead of her as conservative talk-show girl, just as she had a past. But she proved that it doesn’t play well everywhere to run as Sarah Palin’s younger sister.” MORE
RELATED: “It often seemed like [Alan] Grayson putting on a piece of performance art, attacking Republicans with all the vitriol they normally use to attack Democrats, questioning their moral values and basic sense of humanity — and for this, people called him crazy,” Talking Points Memo’s Eric Kleefeld writes in a career obit that further illustrates the blogosphere’s Grayson-love. Given his die-hard fanbase, Grayson should have plenty of opportunities to choose from. MORE
RELATED: Now Obama has a tough choice. Does he continue with this approach, even as the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate shift toward the right and greater extremism, or does he recalibrate and set a more confrontational tone? It’s true, as the conventional pundits say, that American voters don’t like confrontation in Washington. But if Obama—the guy with the bully pulpit—fails to define the opposition in clear terms, it will keep on defining him and his initiatives to their advantage. MORE
RELATED: California voters may be way out there. But not that way out there. The state’s voters rejected a measure that would have legalized marijuana for people over 21. And it wasn’t close. The “No on 19” side appears to have won by a comfortable margin. That means that, medicinal reasons aside, Californians won’t be just lighting up wherever they feel like it – at least for now. With California’s ballot-measure rules, it’s likely to appear again soon. MORE