MONTPELIER, Vt. — Democrats’ majorities in the Vermont House and Senate went from huge to very big in the 2014 elections.

The party’s majority in the Senate went from 23 of 30 seats to 21 – still above the two-thirds majority needed to override a gubernatorial veto.

But in the House, Democrats, while still in the majority, will be unable to muster enough votes to override a veto, even if all independents and Progressives vote with them. That’s unlike the previous session, where House Democrats had been widely seen as holding a veto-proof majority because of their allies.

The number of Democrats in the 150-member House dropped from 94 to 85.

Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin failed to win more than 50 percent of the vote, so a joint session of the Legislature could be asked to decide whether he or Republican challenger Scott Milne will get the seat.

Republicans will grow in number from 45 to 53 in the House. Progressives will have a caucus of six, and there will be six independents, according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election.

“We can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re still in a very deep minority,” said House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton. “I’m excited that we’re going to have more than we had, but it isn’t going to be as big a change as some people hoped for.”

House Speaker Shap Smith also said he did not see a big impact from the modest change in his chamber’s political makeup.

“I think it’ll work fine. It worked when we had a larger majority and we still have a large majority,” the Morristown Democrat said. “My goal has always been to see where we could get some common ground in legislation, and I expect that to continue to be the case.”

With projections that the state could be facing a budget shortfall approaching $100 million in the coming fiscal year, Turner said his caucus would continue to push for spending restraint.

One of the biggest issues before lawmakers in the session that starts in January is expected to be reining in education spending and the property taxes that support it. House Democrats held a news conference shortly before the election to say they had heard that as a top concern from voters.

The other marquis issue will be whether and how to move forward with a plan hatched in 2011 to push Vermont toward a universal, state-backed health care system.

The Shumlin administration has promised to put a plan on how to pay for the health system overhaul before lawmakers in January.

“We all know that the cost of health care is just not sustainable. We have to find some way to pay for it,” said Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, D-Windsor.