There is an obvious list of winners and losers from last night. Beyond those, let’s consider others…

Who had a good night?

1. U.S. Rep. Artur Davis – Wins a hotline into the White House to his friend Obama and has to be pleased about recruiting winners to run in the 2nd and 5th Congressional District.
2. Republican Control of the Courts – After Sue Bell Cobb’s victory, business conservatives vowed to not let it happen again. Shaw’s campaign wasn’t pretty and Dems can claim a moral victory that that Pasuer ran ten points ahead of Obama. But at the end of the day the business conservatives got what they wanted. Republicans also continued their undefeated six year streak on the Criminal and Civil Appellate Courts.
3. Josh Segall – From nowhere to 3 points short of upsetting a sitting Congressman, Segall ran a hard-charging campaign and has positioned himself for future runs.
4. Harri Anne Smith – Smith’s tough year would have gotten worse if the man she crossed the aisle to endorse had lost. Instead Bobby Bright wins by only ~1700 votes. As the saying goes, “If you can’t be king, be kingmaker.” (Hers was not a passive endorsement, for example, the Parlor hears that Republicans on her email list received email from her asking them to support Bright.) Bright’s victory gives her a close relationship with her district’s sitting Congressman and perhaps she emerges as the GOP gatekeeper for him. Some GOP’ers have plenty of hard feelings for her, but with the Dems in the state Senate looking for one more vote in their caucus for a filibuster-proof majority, can the GOP alienate her? The point is not that Smith is in great shape all things considered; the point is that she is in better shape after last night than she was before.
5. Joe Turnham – Some Dems had grumbled about the state Dem chair, but Democrats winning two competitive Congressional races (in a Presidential year, no less) will quieten any talk of a coup.
6. Bob Riley – The Amendment One vote flew largely under the radar, but Riley had to breathe a sigh of relief to see the passage of this amendment he very much supported. Had it failed, significant cuts would have been necessary and Riley’s sky high ratings could have taken a Siegelmanesque dive in the wake of harsh proration.
7. The DCCC – The national Democrats invested over two million dollars between the 2nd and 5th District and pulled out wins in nationally targeted races. The DCCC faced down both the NRCC and the conservative Freedom’s Watch and won head to head on Republican turf. While Josh Segall partisans may grumble that the DCCC could have made the difference in the 3rd District, the DCCC has done a lot to exorcise some of the demons from their allegedly unjustified (although there are some Dems who don’t fault the DCCC for this) pull out in 2002 that many believe cost Joe Turnham the AL-03 race.
8. Beth Chapman – Given the spike in turnout and energy, chaos abounded in a few states yesterday. But Chapman oversaw a relatively smooth Election Day and continues to restore some tranquility to an office that saw its share of turmoil previously.
9. Jefferson County Democrats – The Jefferson County Dems won every race in the county except against Sessions (who won 50.7%). The JeffCo GOP is unlikely to be a factor in future statewide races.

Who had a bad night?

1. Bob Riley’s Coattails – Largely MIA again. The state’s most popular politician cannot transfer that popularity to other Republicans. The three candidates most closely tied to Riley all lost: Jay Love, Twinkle Cavanaugh and Wayne Parker.

   Update: A reader posits that Greg Shaw is more closely tied to Riley than Wayne Parker, and Shaw won his Supreme Court race (barring an unexpected successful challenge from Paseur). While there was apparently no endorsement by Riley for Shaw like there was for Parker, I am told that Riley did record robocalls on Shaw’s behalf. And that he did robocalls for Reed Ingram’s successful campaign for the Montgomery County Commission.

2. Artur Davis’ Gubernatorial Hopes – Davis has been running a “pre-primary race” to convince Alabamians he can win if and when he gets into the actual race. His “pre-primary race” got a little harder after Obama’s winning campaign did worse in Alabama (39%, 13 points less than his national average) than Kerry’s losing campaign did in 2004 (38% and 10 points behind his national average).
3. State GOP Chair Mike Hubbard – On the bad night list not because of the party’s performance but because the two high-profile Congressional losses means he faces more saber-rattling from the already existing anti-Hubbard faction of the GOP. A signature win under his leadership would go a long way.
4. The James Gang – Father Fob and Son Tim were hoping to ride anti-Amendment One momentum to the starting line of the GOP gubernatorial primary. But instead Amendment One passed and the grassroots conservative energy didn’t develop, perhaps showing a waning of the anti-establishment GOP wing’s salad days of Roy Moore / Tom Parker / and the ’03 Riley tax package.