The Washington Post notes that in recent weeks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “has reiterated that she will not stay on for President Obama’s second term, unleashing fresh waves of speculation about her plans.”

“There is hypothesizing that she is merely entering a hibernation period before a 2016 presidential bid. There is talk that she will start her own women’s rights initiative. There is the prospect, too, that this might really be it for one of the most iconic figures in American political history.”

“What is clear is that despite lingering questions about Benghazi, Clinton is more beloved than at any point in her long and at times controversial career, commanding soaring approval ratings, a vast fundraising machine and supporters who gush more than ever that she should run for president again.”

The Week: What’s next for Hillary Clinton?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has set the record of most votes won in a Senate election, Bloomberg reports.

An updated tall finds her winning more than 7.1 million votes in the Nov. 6 election.

Newt Gingrich — traveling the country promoting his latest novel — told the Naples News that he he has not ruled out running for president in 2016 — but first the GOP must take on a “very serious analysis” of what went wrong in 2012.

Said Gingrich: “Republicans have to stop and take a deep breath.”

Polly Judd told the AP she is skeptical of talk that her famous granddaughter, actress Ashley Judd, might run for U.S. Senate against Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Said Judd: “I don’t think there’s any possibility of that happening… I think Mitch has done more for Ashland than anybody else who has been in there. That means a lot. He’s been here personally, and we don’t always get that from politicians who represent us.”

Of her granddaughter, she added: “She’s a Hollywood liberal. It would be interesting to see what type of race she would run.”

“Nancy Pelosi decided to take one more crack at winning back the House, but a big obstacle stands between the Democratic leader and the speaker’s gavel in 2014: the six-year itch,” Politico reports.

“Pelosi’s party will be swimming against the riptide of history. The party controlling the White House during a president’s sixth year in office has lost seats in every midterm election but one since 1918, when Woodrow Wilson occupied the Oval Office. And the setbacks typically aren’t small: The average loss in these elections was 30 seats. The exception was 1998, when a soaring economy and Republicans’ focus on President Bill Clinton’s affair helped Democrats buck the trend and pick up a handful of seats.”

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) will announce tomorrow morning that she is running in 2014 for the seat now held by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), West Virginia Metro News reports.

“The announcement sets up a potential race between two West Virginia political heavyweights… Rockefeller has indicated that he plans to run for re-election in 2014, but there continues to be speculation that he may retire at the end of this term.”

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) returned to Congress after a U.S. Senate campaign “that left him vilified for his verbal missteps and blamed for his role in the Republican Party’s dismal showing in the elections,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Though he’ll be out of work when the new Congress takes over in January, Akin “is hopeful about what lies ahead. He said he is considering taking advantage of his new fame by writing a book — something Sen. Claire McCaskill, the victor in his race, also has discussed.”

President Obama finished more strongly in the South than any other Democratic presidential nominee in three decades, “underscoring a fresh challenge for Republicans who rely on Southern whites as their base of national support,” the Washington Post reports.

“Obama won Virginia and Florida and narrowly missed victory in North Carolina. But he also polled as well in Georgia as any Democrat since Jimmy Carter, grabbed 44 percent of the vote in deep-red South Carolina and just under that in Mississippi — despite doing no substantive campaigning in any of those states.”

“Much of the post-election analysis has focused on the demographic crisis facing Republicans among Hispanic voters, particularly in Texas. But the results across other parts of the South, where Latinos remain a single-digit minority, point to separate trends among blacks and whites that may also have big implications for the GOP’s future.”

“The Democratic sweep at the top of Pennsylvania’s ballot has so energized the party that three prospective candidates are already sending out strong signals of interest in contesting Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s re-election bid two years from now,” the AP reports.

Tom Wolf (D), Tom Knox (D) and John Hanger (D) have all said they are seriously considering seeking the 2014 Democratic nomination or have already decided to run. Former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) also said he is “very interested” in returning to public service but would not discuss his plans for 2014.

Ruling out a gubernatorial campaign: Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and former Gov. Ed Rendell (D).

Rahm Emanuel: “Too much post-election analysis has focused on voter demographics and campaign mechanics, leaving Democrats in danger of drawing the wrong lessons from our electoral success.”

“Demographics alone are not destiny. There is nothing in this year’s election returns that guarantees Democrats a permanent majority in the years to come. President Obama and the Democratic Party earned the support of key groups — young people, single women, Latinos, African Americans, auto workers in the Rust Belt and millions of other middle-class Americans — because of our ideas. But we cannot expect Republicans to cede the economic argument so readily, or to fall so far short on campaign mechanics, the next time around. So, instead of resting on false assurances of underlying demographic advantages, the Democratic Party must follow through on our No. 1 priority, which the president set when he took office and reemphasized throughout this campaign: It is time to come home and rebuild America.”