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| Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, celebrated his re-election with supporters during a party in Louisville, Ky. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times |
Resurgent Republicans took control of the Senate on Tuesday night, expanded their hold on the House, and defended some of the most closely contested governors’ races, in a repudiation of President Obama that will reorder the political map in his final years in office.
Propelled by economic dissatisfaction and anger toward the president, Republicans grabbed Democratic Senate seats in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and South Dakota to gain their first Senate majority since 2006. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a shrewd Republican tactician, cruised to re-election and stood poised to achieve a goal he has pursued for years — Senate majority leader.
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| Speaker John A. Boehner voting in his home state of Ohio on Tuesday. Mr. Boehner was expected to have a larger majority after the election, but one that may still be difficult to control. Credit Cara Owsley/The Cincinnati Enquirer, via Associated Press |
An election that started as trench warfare, state by state and district by district, crested into a sweeping Republican victory. Contests that were expected to be close were not, and races expected to go Democratic broke narrowly for the Republicans. The uneven character of the economic recovery added to a sense of anxiety, leaving voters in a punishing mood, particularly for Democrats in Southern states and the Mountain West, where political polarization deepened.
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Gov. Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin, gave an impassioned defense of his policies after defeating Mary Burke, the Democratic candidate.
Video by AP on Publish Date November 5, 2014. Photo by Morry Gash/Associated Press. |
Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, was easily re-elected in Wisconsin, a state that voted twice for Mr. Obama. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott, once considered endangered, finished the night on top. And states that had seemingly been trending Democratic, like Colorado and Iowa, fell into Republican hands.
With at least a nine-seat gain and most likely more, House Republicans will have close to 245 seats, the largest Republican majority since the Truman administration.
For Republicans, the victories piled up, winning not only Senate Democratic seats they were expected to take — Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and Arkansas — but also in states that were supposed to be close. Representative Cory Gardner, a Republican, crushed Senator Mark Udall in Colorado. In Georgia, the Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, was widely expected to force David Perdue, a Republican businessman, into a runoff for the Senate seat of Saxby Chambliss, a retiring Republican. Instead, Mr. Perdue won more than half the vote to take the race outright. Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, also fended off the independent challenger Greg Orman, who just weeks ago appeared headed to victory.
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| Gov. Sam Brownback, left, and U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts high-five each other during a rally in Wichita in October. (Oct. 28, 2014)Jaime Green/File photo |
Two years after handing Democrats broad victories, voters again seemed to be reaching for a way to end Washington inertia. Yet the results on Tuesday may serve only to reinforce it. Voters appeared unsure of just what they wanted, according to surveys. Among those who voted for a Democrat, only one out of eight expressed an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Republican voters were more conflicted; among those who voted Republican, one of four viewed the party unfavorably.
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Rick Scott’s Victory Speech
Gov. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, spoke after defeating Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor who was running as a Democrat.
Video by AP on Publish Date November 5, 2014. Photo by Erik Kellar/Getty Images. |
Even though a record $4 billion poured into the election — from the campaigns, parties and outside groups for advertising and other candidate support — the money did little to stir enthusiasm as the campaign set a more dubious mark for its low levels of voter interest.
With the political climate and the electoral map playing to their decided advantage, Republicans were determined not to relive the elections of 2010 and 2012, when infighting between establishment Republicans and Tea Party insurgents damaged the party’s brand and elevated candidates who could not win.
From the beginning, party officials decided to take sides when fierce primary challenges emerged. The party establishment crushed challengers to Mr. McConnell in Kentucky, and to Senators Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee.
The establishment also sent reinforcements to help Senator Thad Cochran eke out a runoff victory against a Tea Party firebrand in Mississippi; cleared the Republican field for Mr. Gardner in Colorado; and backed winning primary candidates in Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Alaska.
But mainly, Democrats were working off a map heavily tilted toward Republicans in states like West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, Arkansas and Alaska, in a year when disengaged, frustrated voters and Mr. Obama’s low approval ratings were inevitably going to be a millstone.
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| President Obama at a meeting Tuesday on the Ebola outbreak. The president made little public comment about the elections. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times |
Republicans would like the country to believe that they took control of the Senate on Tuesday by advocating a strong, appealing agenda of job creation, tax reform and spending cuts. But, in reality, they did nothing of the sort.
Even the voters who supported Republican candidates would have a hard time explaining what their choices are going to do. That’s because virtually every Republican candidate campaigned on only one thing: what they called the failure of President Obama. In speech after speech, ad after ad, they relentlessly linked their Democratic opponent to the president and vowed that they would put an end to everything they say the public hates about his administration. On Tuesday morning, the Republican National Committee released a series of get-out-the-vote images showing Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate candidates next to this message: “If you’re not a voter, you can’t stop Obama.”
The most important promises that winning Republicans made were negative in nature. They will repeal health care reform. They will roll back new regulations on banks and Wall Street. They will stop the Obama administration’s plans to curb coal emissions and reform immigration and invest in education.
Campaigning on pure negativity isn’t surprising for a party that has governed that way since Mr. Obama was first sworn in. By creating an environment where every initiative is opposed and nothing gets done, Republicans helped engineer the president’s image as weak and ineffectual. Mitch McConnell, who will be the Senate’s new majority leader, vowed in 2009 to create “an inventory of losses” to damage Mr. Obama for precisely the results achieved on Tuesday.
Mr. McConnell was assisted in this goal by the president’s own second-term stumbles — most notably the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act last year, an indecisive foreign policy, and revelations of domestic surveillance and improper veterans care. Republicans were also able to exploit nativist fears about immigrant children crossing at the southern border and some initial troubles in responding to the first domestic cases of Ebola.
In some races, missteps by the Democrats helped Republicans. In Iowa, Representative Bruce Braley may have cost himself the race by making a belittling comment about farmers. In Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes didn’t establish a reputation for candor when she refused to discuss her previous votes for president.
Virtually all Democratic candidates distanced themselves from Mr. Obama and refused to make the case that there has been substantial progress on jobs and economic growth under this administration.
Their caucuses in the Senate and the House will be more conservative than before, and many winning candidates will feel obliged to live up to their promises of obstruction. Mr. McConnell has already committed himself to opposing a minimum-wage increase, fighting regulations on carbon emissions and repealing the health law.