The election might've been rough for most of the Country, but the news in California (and beyond) actually isn't all that bad.

The biggest dodged bullet: Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman, Gavin Newsom beat Abel Maldonado, and Barbara Boxer beat Carly Fiorina. All three democrats favor marriage equality, and all three Republicans favor discrimination. So, that's a relief.

Steady support from state leaders has been instrumental in challenging discrimination, so it's good to know that it won't be going away anytime soon.

Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is still locked in ballot-counting limbo for the Attorney General's race. We might not know if she beat Steve Cooley for several more weeks. Eek.

And there's more good news: Andy Pugno, one of the architects of Prop 8, lost his assembly bid.

In Iowa, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said that he would block a vote to revoke marriage equality. (But there's bad news in Iowa, too: three of the judges who ruled in favor of marriage equality were voted out of office. Of course, it was a unanimous ruling, and some of the judges were appointed by Republicans. So it's likely that those judges' replacements will favor marriage equality as well.)

And even though the National Organization for Marriage spent $5 million on this election, more LGBT candidates were elected to office than ever before: over a hundred, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.