Writing on The New Republic’s website, Amy Sullivan notes that “Nationally, Democrats made modest gains among two important groups of religious voters--they matched Bush's 2004 advantage with Catholics (52-47) and improved upon Kerry's 21-point deficit among evangelicals.”

Newsweek has a very good summary of the Ballot Initiatives. It notes that “205 propositions in 37 states were put to the public. In several contests, social conservatives suffered significant defeats: in South Dakota, voters rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions; Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage, and Missouri approved a measure backing stem-cell research.”

James Dodson of Focus on the Family, probably the most politically significant voice on the Religious Right analyzes the election, noting that " Republican leaders in Congress during this term apparently never understood, or they forgot, why Ronald Reagan was so loved and why he is considered one of our greatest presidents. If they hope to return to power in '08, they must rediscover the conservative principles that resonated with the majority of Americans in the 1980s -- and still resonate with them today. Failure to do so will be catastrophic. Values Voters are not going to carry the water for the Republican Party if it ignores their deeply held convictions and beliefs.

I thought that Slate’s round-up of election coverage from the international press was very interesting.

Campus Progress reports on the “estimated 10 million young Americans (ages 29 and under) [that] came out to vote yesterday—the largest number ever and an increase of two million since the midterm election in 2002. Estimated youth turnout jumped from 20 percent in 2002 to 24 percent in 2006.”

Michael Medved has an interesting analysis of where the Republicans went wrong.