Their majority of gubernatorial seats larger by one, Democrats are taking aim at key states in 2010, including California, Minnesota and Connecticut. Republicans, who successfully re-elected four incumbents on an election night of big GOP losses elsewhere, want to win back Kansas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, among others.

At stake is control over the redrawing of legislative and congressional maps and the chance to influence the 2012 presidential election through governors' bully pulpits and fundraising machines.

At the end of an Election Day in which 11 governorships were decided, eight incumbents were re-elected, split evenly between the two parties. Democrats won the three governors' posts where no incumbent was running, and flipped one of those — Missouri — from Republican to Democratic hands.

But Tuesday's results gave both parties reason to be optimistic about 2010.

Democrats increased their advantage over the GOP to 29-21 nationally with the Missouri win. They kept the seat in Democratic hands in an open race in North Carolina, electing Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue that state's first female governor, and re-electing Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire in a rematch of her bitter 2004 race.

The races were a prelude to 2010, when a majority of states elect governors who will help preside over the redrawing of legislative and congressional districts — key to enabling one party or the other to win dominance in statehouses and the Congress.