The 2006 elections are now behind us. Although bellies are full today from yesterday’s turkey, I thought there might be a little room left for some electoral leftovers from the midterm results.

The major storyline in 2006 was the Rust Belt realignment in which moderate-to-liberal Republicans were defeated throughout the Northeast and Midwest. Ironically, these defeated incumbents were casualties of the voters’ rebuke of a southern-fried Republican agenda which claimed few southern Republicans.

As a result, Connecticut Congressman Chris Shays is now the only Republican House member among the 22 members elected from the six New England states. For the first time since 1912, New Hampshire will not have at least one Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and its state governor and legislature are controlled by Democrats for the first time since the 1870s.

In January, Democrats will have either the governor or at least one U.S. senator in 41 of 50 states. The only nine in which they are shut out are Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. If Kentucky is counted as a southern state, six of the nine are in the South.

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A more telling regional fact is this: For the first time since the 83rd Congress of 1953-54, the party with a majority of House and Senate seats from the South is the minority party in both chambers in Congress. If Democrats continue to hold their congressional majorities moving forward, despite having a minority of southern seats, it will be the first such sustained period since before the New Deal where the southern-dominant party is the minority congressional party.

The Democrats continued to expand and consolidate their gains in the Interior West, picking up two House seats in Arizona, one in Colorado, and flipping the Colorado governor’s office.

The Centennial State is a big story, indeed. Prior to the 2004 elections, Republicans had the governor, majorities in both state legislative chambers, a majority of Colorado’s U.S. House delegation and the state’s two U.S. senators. Now Democrats have the governor, both state chambers, a 4-to-3 majority in the House delegation and one of the two senators.

Turing to key voting blocks, the midterms were a huge victory for labor. Despite their declining numbers, union members, retirees or persons living in union households went for the Democrats by 30 points, 64 percent to 34 percent. Among non-union voters, the two parties were split, 49 percent each.

This economically populist trend will not surprise those who listened to Democratic messages. Democratic candidates from a variety of states and districts were in almost perfect harmony in their support for raising the minimum wage and giving the federal government greater power to negotiate lower prescription drug costs.

Young voters were another compelling story in 2006. Normally the Democrats’ booby prize because they turn out at such low rates, 24 percent of under-30 voters voted this year. That sounds terrible, but it’s four percent higher than their turnout rate four years ago, and the highest in 20 years.

Hispanics also provided Democrats a huge boost. After an estimated 40 percent of Hispanics voted Republican in 2004, the GOP share dropped to about 30 percent. President Bush and his brother Jeb helped the Republican Party make significant inroads with Hispanic voters this decade, but those gains were washed away.

There were other trends of note in 2006, but here’s the most important of all: For the first time since 1994, Democrats now have a majority in Congress, a majority of the 50 state governors, and a majority of the state legislative chambers.

The 12-year Republican reign is over.

Thomas F. Schaller is associate political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South.”