2014 Was A Non-Voting Election - Not A Wave Election

I am still hearing some pundits calling the recent election a "wave" election -- inferring that the voters gave Republicans a mandate to institute their policies. I'm still not buying that. The Republicans did well in the election, and now control both houses of the 114th Congress -- but they did not get a mandate from the voters. What happened was that only a small percentage of registered voters bothered to go to the polls, and a majority of that tiny minority were Republicans (who are still upset that a Black man inhabits the White House), while too many Democrats and Independents did not vote.

If it had truly been a wave election, then we should expect to see significant majorities of the population preferring Republicans and Republican policies, but a new poll shows that is just not true. It is the NBC News / Wall Street Journal Poll, done between November 14th and 17th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults (with a margin of error of 3.1 points). I have charted some of that poll's results above.

Note that the Democratic Party is still more popular than the Republican Party (by 6 points), although both parties are rated more negatively than positively -- and the voters are split on whether they like or dislike the Republicans being in control of Congress. In addition, a majority thinks the government should do more to help hurting Americans (which is certainly not what congressional Republicans want).

And the public doesn't expect the outcome of this election to fix much in Washington. About 72% (nearly 3 out of 4) don't expect any improvement among cooperation in Washington -- with 32% saying things will get worse and 40% saying it will make no difference. About 53% think the president will try to work with GOP leaders, but only 44% expect GOP leaders to make an attempt to work with the president.

In short, the public doesn't think this election fixed anything. We are looking at another two years of political infighting and gridlock, with nothing of any importance getting done. And sadly, that's just what a majority of voters deserve -- because they didn't bother to vote.