THE RIVER STYX, HELL (CT&P) – At an early morning press conference just outside the gates of Hell, Satanic Press Secretary Lord Balthazar told reporters that Lucifer, Lord of the Underworld and Prince of Darkness, was “positively euphoric” over the results in yesterday’s midterm elections.

“His Majesty Lord Satan could not be happier,” said Balthazar. “Beelzebub believes that these results represent an overwhelming victory for the forces of darkness and will set the United States back decades on important issues such as racial hatred, fear of immigrants, climate change, health care, and women’s rights. With any luck, these fine new elected officials will be able to reverse the current progressive trends that have alarmed all of us down in Hades.”

Balthazar went on to say that Mephistopheles was hopeful that the archaic and draconian policies that the new officeholders support could be used to roll back recent gains made by supporters of gay marriage, enlightened drug policy, and intelligent foreign policy that has so far prevented another ground war in the Middle East.

“Lord Apollyon is literally on Cloud Nine,” said Balthazar. “He feels that the election results show once and for all that a well-financed campaign based on fear mongering and hateful rhetoric will sway an unenlightened electorate, just like we have always said it would. He told me in private that now money will surely edge out Ebola, ISIS, and wheat gluten to take its rightful place as the root of all evil in America.”

Lord Balthazar concluded the press conference by telling reporters that although the stars were not as favorably aligned for the 2016 election, Old Nick felt that if supplied with enough cash from earth-dwelling demons such as the Koch brothers, any one of the current GOP Neanderthal candidates for president could give Hillary a run for her money.

“We remain optimistic about 2016,” concluded Balthazar. “Propaganda is a powerful tool to use on an uneducated public, and as the master himself once said, we should ‘think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.’ We feel that as long as our allies such as Fox News can keep their ratings up, there will be enough numbnut voters out there to get our candidate elected president in 2016.”