Going into last week's election, no one knew for sure which party would end up with control of the two chambers of the Minnesota Legislature. All 201 seats were on the ballot, but redistricting meant there wasn't a historical record of which way the new districts might swing.

As the results came in, the outcome was clear: not only had Republicans failed to take control of the Minnesota House, they also lost their one-seat hold on the Minnesota Senate.

An analysis of the 2020 presidential election results showed voters in the majority of the newly drawn districts — in both chambers — went for President Biden over Donald Trump. That meant Republicans faced an uphill climb.

Here's how the GOP fell short.

Senate

A party needs 34 seats to win control of the 67-seat Senate.

Of those 67 total districts, voters in 30 of them favored Trump in the 2020 election — natural ground for GOP victories.

And the GOP came close to winning all of them; 29 of the 30 districts went to Republicans last week.

The chart below shows the results of every Senate race, with Senate winners' margin of victory on the horizontal axis and the estimated Trump-Biden margin of victory on the vertical axis:

The one race that got away would prove important: Senate District 4, including Moorhead and the surrounding area, had been held by a DFLer who recently retired. Many expected it would be an obvious pickup for the GOP since voters in that area went for Trump in 2020 by about 3.5 percentage points.

It didn't happen. DFLer Rob Kupec won the district last week by nearly 6 percentage points.

Republicans still needed five more seats.

And as it happened, the party had five incumbents running in districts that only narrowly leaned toward Biden. Four of them were re-elected, at least if current results hold — Republican Sen. Jim Abeler's race was one of a small handful of races still not called by the Associated Press as of Monday morning.

They were still short one seat.

Republicans’ next best shot was one of the three most closely watched contests this year, all in areas where voters supported Biden, including two open seats.

They didn't get them: the DFL swept competitive races in northeastern Minnesota, St. Cloud and the east metro.

If any of those three races had come out differently — or if Republicans hadn't lost the District 4 seat, where they should have been favored — they would have maintained control of the Senate through 2026.

House

The path to victory was even tougher for the GOP in the 134-seat House. It takes 68 seats to win control of the chamber, but in 77 districts, voters favored Biden in 2020.

The biggest blow: All five Republican incumbents in newly drawn districts that had favored Biden were defeated.

Republicans were able to defeat some DFL representatives in northeastern Minnesota, but these were mostly in Trump-leaning districts that they needed to win anyway.

And one Iron Range district was out of reach as voters re-elected DFL Rep. David Lislegard in a district where voters favored Trump by more than four points.

That loss was effectively canceled out by the GOP's defeat of longtime Rep. Mary Murphy in a Biden-leaning district, yet it put the party back to where it started: with 57 seats.

Could they pick up the remaining 11 seats they needed in districts where Biden narrowly won?

The GOP made inroads, winning seven of the eight closest districts.

But that left the party with 64 seats, still four short of the majority.

Tom Nehil is the Star Tribune’s newsroom developer, using code to help find and tell stories.