Karl Rove said GOP well represented in states and poised for comeback WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- The Republicans are more popular in the United States than it might appear in the aftermath of the presidential election, GOP campaign guru Karl Rove said. Rove contended on ABC's "This Week" that Mitt Romney's failure to unseat President Obama and some high-profile congressional pratfalls were more the result of personalities rather than policy. The GOP still controls the U.S. House of Representatives and is well represented in state legislatures and governors' mansions. "The Senate would have been Republican were it not for bad candidates," Rove said. "This president was re-elected with a smaller percentage of the vote than he got elected with four years ago," said Rove. And nobody believes that he got re-elected because of compelling, positive, forward-looking agenda for America; he irradiated Mitt Romney and made him out to be a plutocrat. Rove said he was encouraged by the solid ranks of Republican governors and lawmakers in states such as Texas that have large Hispanic populations. "In Texas, a Republican naturally campaigns everywhere in Texas, including Latino communities, African American communities, Anglo communities, rural, urban," he said. In other states that's just not normal. We need to make it normal.