The clichéd term for what happened last night is “wave election,” but if natural phenomena are going to be evoked, the more accurate expression is “tornado election:” widespread destruction in weird, jagged patterns that are often difficult to explain when it’s over.
When a force that powerful is fueled by anger rather than careful analysis, it produces results that can seem irrational. More than a third of people voting for a Republican House candidate said they were unhappy or even angry at the Republican leaders in Congress, according to exit polls, but they did so anyway, producing a House that is even more right-wing than the current one.
On a day of Republican triumph, a majority of voters said they wanted to find a way to allow immigrants to stay in this country, even if they are here illegally. That position could not be more at odds with the one held by most of the new senators elected yesterday.
Two-thirds of voters complained that the economy favors the wealthy. But they supported candidates who largely back further tax cuts for the wealthy, who oppose an increase in the minimum wage, who have blocked expanding Medicaid for poor people and who want to repeal a law that has provided health insurance to those who couldn’t afford it.
They did it in order to send a message of deep disappointment and frustration to President Obama, but the message didn’t really contain much content beyond that. “I’m just tired of all the fighting and bickering,” Jeffrey Kowalczuk, a Wisconsin voter, told The Times yesterday, explaining why he voted for Republicans.
One of the Republicans who probably won his support was Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who was re-elected yesterday after causing more fighting and bickering than most through his assault on public employees. And that kind of contradiction happened all over.
Half of the Colorado voters who think abortion should be legal in most cases helped elect Cory Gardner to the Senate, even though he supports a “personhood” bill that would have the effect of banning almost all abortions. A similar amendment on the Colorado ballot yesterday was defeated, but a third of those voting “no” still supported Mr. Gardner.
Most Georgia voters said the economy was the biggest issue on their mind, but they elected as senator David Perdue, who as a corporate chief laid off thousands of people and expressed pride in how many jobs he outsourced to other countries.
And of course the new Senate majority leader will be Mitch McConnell, elected by a state that is benefiting greatly from the new health insurance system that he has vowed to repeal.
None of those little details matter, we are told, because when the people are angry, they simply lash out. But the results brought to mind a completely unrelated survey that also came out yesterday. Almost everyone who uses a cellphone for texting said they know the extreme dangers of doing so while driving. But three-quarters of them do it anyway. Destructive and inexplicable behavior is not limited to politics.