At last it’s over. The midterm 2006 elections are history, and history-making. And we’re not just talking about the House of Representatives going Democratic Blue, with the Senate sure to follow soon. (Bye, bye, Sen. Macaca!) The results have already seen Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld submit his (by our count, third) resignation to President George W. Bush. Only this time, Bush accepted! He’s nominated ex-CIA Director Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld, who may be the only member of the administration who understands that the elections were a repudiation of Bush’s handling of Iraq.

But before we gloat too much on behalf of the Democrats, let’s acknowledge that they suffered their share of defeats on Tuesday, too: Here at home, state Sen. Dina Titus was defeated in her bid to become the state’s first female governor by U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, by a decisive 47.9 percent to 43.9 percent margin. And while Democrats made a gain of one seat each in the state senate (giddily dispatching state Sen. Sandra Tiffany) and Assembly (bye, bye, Assemblyman Brooks Holcomb), they failed to reach the magic two-thirds majority in the lower house and still don’t control the senate.

A few other post-election random thoughts, with the caveat that we haven’t really crunched the numbers:

>> The north will rise again! Actually, the north did rise, and in big numbers. While Titus defeated Gibbons in Clark County by 23,418 votes, Gibbons won every other county. (Yes, that’s right, every county, including Mineral.) Statewide, he earned 22,935 more votes than she did.

While the northern part of the state looks with suspicion on Las Vegas, it should go to sleep tonight knowing that there is still political power outside of Clark County. That’s what handed the state to President Bush — twice — and what handed the governor’s mansion to Gibbons. (In fact, if you look closely, you’ll see Gibbons margin tracks closely with the 21,500-vote margin with which Bush beat U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2004.)

>> U.S. Rep. Jon Porter had a political near-death experience. After dispatching ex-Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera and ex-Park Place CEO Tom Gallagher with relative ease, Porter faced his first really tough race against first-timer Tessa Hafen. Without the moral sleaze of Herrera or the many houses of Gallagher, Porter’s team was left to assault native-Nevadan Hafen on charges of … carpetbagging? Illegal immigration, the GOP’s favorite boogeyman in this cycle, also played a role, although Hafen and Porter share a very similar view on the subject.

Bottom line: Even with an almost-even district registration, Hafen came within 3,966 votes of unseat a two-term incumbent who has always won by double-digit margins in the past. Porter should heed the message voters sent: A little distance between a supposedly independent Nevada Republican and national GOP leadership is a good thing.

P.S. The Esquire endorsement of Porter (on the basis of his being fiscally conservative yet socially liberal) probably helped, as Esquire-dubbed Sexiest Woman Alive Scarlett Johansson was on the cover. A lot of people read that issue. You know, eventually.

>> While the GOP may have captured the governor’s mansion (and the lieutenant governor’s mansion, which not many people know is Room 302 at the Carson Station hotel), the Democrats took every other constitutional office. Let’s do the list: Catherine Cortez Masto will be the new attorney general; Ross Miller will be the new secretary of state; Kate Marshall will be the new treasurer; and Kim Wallin will be the new controller.

What does that mean? For the first time in a long time, the Democrats have a farm team, gathering experience, name recognition and fundraising ability while in office. That’s especially true of Cortez Masto, who won her race with landslide numbers, nearly 60 percent.

>> Two-thirds of the group once derisively known as the "sorority sisters" are history. First, Republican Joe Heck dispatched Sister-in-Chief Ann O’Connell back in 2004. Now, Democrat Joyce Woodhouse has slain Second Sister Sandra Tiffany. The third, and now loneliest, sister — Barbara Cegavske — beat back a challenge to her seat to be the only surviving member.

Woodhouse had lots of help, especially from a shadowy group calling itself … what was that name? Citizens for Better Education? Or something. Anyway, a series of last-minute fliers aimed at Tiffany was absolutely brutal, sometimes over-the-top and very, very effective. (Kudos, Citizens!) In any case, we’re guessing the real culprit was the teacher’s union, which didn’t take kindly to Tiffany’s push to break the Clark County School District into smaller districts, known as the Rich White Suburbs Unified School District and The Rest.

>> Question 5, which will ban smoking in bars, restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores and pretty much every other place in Nevada, passed. Question 4, which would have allowed smoking in places where kids aren’t allowed — hello, bars — went down to defeat.

Why you gotta hate on us smokers, Nevada? What did we ever do to you, but ask to be left alone to puff on our fine cigars in peace. A pox on your houses! And a party in the cigar room at Del Frisco’s before Question 5 takes effect!

>> Which newspaper carries more influence with voters? We at Various Things & Stuff took the time to digest the Review-Journal’s and the Sun’s endorsements and gauge which newspaper voters listened to more. And the results were the closest race of the night.

The Review-Journal endorsed in 70 different races and ballot questions. In 76 percent of those races, voters cast the vote the R-J urged them to cast. Voters disagreed in the remaining 24 percent of the cases.

The Sun, by contrast, endorsed in 77 different races, and found itself in agreement with voters 74 percent of the time, just behind the R-J, and in disagreement with voters 26 percent of the time. (The Sun’s averages were skewed somewhat in that it issued dual endorsements in three races; in those events, we counted the victorious endorsed candidate as a "yes" from voters, but the defeat of the losing candidate as a "no" from voters. Make up your mind, Sun, you’re blowing the curve!)

The truly amazing thing is this: Despite the fact that the R-J is a libertarian-leaning newspaper and the Sun is considered its "liberal" alternative, the two papers agreed in a whopping 39 races and/or issues. That’s a high degree of concurrence for papers supposedly so philosophically at odds.

But the contrast between the two papers was nowhere more apparent than in the Sun’s desperate push to save Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker from political extinction, and the R-J’s efforts to send her to an early political grave. (The R-J won that one, by the way: Voters elected District Court Judge Nancy Saitta over Becker by a 47 percent to 38 percent margin (with a whopping 15 percent for "none.")

The R-J did a series of editorials on Becker, as did the Sun, which went the extra mile with a ridiculous front-page piece by longtime Sun scribe Jeff German, who allowed Becker to claim the "far right," led by the R-J, was after her.