The U.S. midterm elections could have meant a potentially big impact on the efforts to legalize online poker in the States.

Barney Frank, sponsor of the only concrete piece of legislation designed to legalize U.S. online poker - the HR2267 - and Chairman of the House Financial Committee, won his re-election race after beating Sean Bielat, a 35-year-old ex-marine, in the run for the position as House Representative for Massachusetts.

Democrat Frank won by a comfortable margin, and will now be heading back to serve his 16th term in office, among other things hopefully continuing his work to push for legalized online poker in the States.

As the Democrats nationally lost the majority in the House to the Republicans, Frank will however lose his chairmanship of the House Financial Committee, the first of three House committees to approve the HR2267.

Meanwhile, Senator of Nevada and former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, Harry Reid, also earned his re-election yesterday evening in a race against Tea Party darling Sharon Angle.

Reid was earlier this year rumored to be pushing for introducing online poker legislation from the Las Vegas heartland, and although this was denied by Reid's office staff in an interview with Card Player Magazine, his re-election could very well turn out to be beneficial to the cause of abolishing the unpopular UIEGA and replacing it with the HR2267.

Reid is also the Senate majority leader and will according to Senate polls from CBS News return to this role once the elections are over.