Obama needs to forge new consensus after wave of republican wins

If you landed from space this week you might think the United States Capitol in Washington, DC, encased in a new grey cocoon of scaffolding erected to repair the leaking dome, had something to do with the stunning takeover Republicans enjoyed in the US midterm elections on Tuesday night.

This "off-year" election was a drubbing for Democrats, surpassing the 2010 "shellacking", as President Barack Obama described the defeat Republicans delivered on the party in his first midterms.

Obama woke up yesterday confirmed as a lame-duck president; to a Congress controlled by the other party; and to an electorate angry at the state of the country and the Washington establishment. The people may resent Republicans and Democrats in equal measure but the make-up of the races meant that at the polls the frustration was inflicted on Obama's party.

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President Barack Obama has invited Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and House to a meeting at the White House tomorrow. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

From the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to the Iowa plains to the Rockies in Colorado – and right up to state capitols in the liberal northeast – another red wave swept the country during Obama's presidency. The electoral trouncing gives Republicans control of two-thirds of the US government for the first time in eight years. It was the "six- year itch" when the party of the president is punished in the midterm elections of his second term in office.

An overwhelming Republican victory brought control of the Senate, increased its majority in the House of Representatives to hold the greatest number of seats in the lower chamber since the Great Depression and wins for GOP governors in true-blue Democratic states of Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois.

“It was a wave,” said a Democratic insider. “Good people lost with numbers even their worst polls never had it at.”

Humiliating defeat

Democrats lost in Colorado and Iowa, states Obama won twice in presidential elections, and in North Carolina, which he won once. It was a humiliating defeat in states where he accepted the presidential nominations in 2008 (Colorado) and 2012 (North Carolina). Republicans picked up at least seven seats, passing the magical six they needed for control of the upper chamber. In addition to Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina the party took Democratic seats in

Arkansas

,

West Virginia

, Montana and

South Dakota

.

Unfortunately for Democrats the pain may continue. Alaska, where results lag the rest of the country, may send another Republican senator to Washington and Democratic senator Mary Landrieu is up against it in a one-on-one run-off in Louisiana next month.

"It is a very unhappy country. It is a country that is very disappointed in its national leadership," Mike McCurry, press secretary in the mid-1990s during the Clinton presidency, told The Irish Times. "When you are the president of the United States you bear the brunt of that in many ways but I don't know that Republicans ought to take much comfort from the mood of the electorate because it is exasperation more than triumph in the case of the Republicans."

Young voters, single women, African- Americans and Latinos – the Democratic base that hurtled Obama to power in 2008 and kept him there in 2012 – just didn't turn up in the same numbers. Republicans also scored wins in key states – Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and Florida – that will decide who succeeds Obama as president.

These elections became a referendum on him. Republicans picked moderate candidates in primary races, resisting hard-right Tea Party contenders, and won the closest races by berating opponents for voting with an unpopular president.

Even the star-pulling power of Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, the probable Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, wasn't enough to help in Obama's absence from tight Senate races.

Given his unpopularity, the president mis-stepped, tying himself to the electoral fate of his fellow Democrats. In a speech that kicked off his election campaign last month the president said that while he was not on the ballot his policies were.

In the end, a Democratic governor was even unseated in the president’s home state of Illinois, despite appearances by Obama and his wife, Michelle, in one of the few states in which he campaigned.

Republican dominance in Congress, not seen on this level since the first half of the last century, will lead to more paralysis in Washington. In control of the Senate and the House, Republicans can make Obama's final two years in the White House even more tortuous with further appointments being blocked and powerful congressional committees questioning every aspect of the executive branch.

Obamacare

The party is likely to push for the controversial Keystone oil pipeline running from

Canada

to

Texas

to be built and may try to unpick parts of Obamacare, the landmark legislation of the president’s first term.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, poised to become Senate majority leader, blamed the Obama administration for the losses but offered hope of a solution to the partisan gridlock that has infuriated voters, saying in his victory speech in Kentucky: "Just because we have a two-party system doesn't mean we have to be in perpetual conflict."

Obama reciprocated by inviting Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and House to a meeting at the White House tomorrow.

Republicans, who have been divided by an internal tug-of-war between moderate and conservative factions, must show they can unite and govern if they are to mount a challenge for the presidency in 2016.

While Republicans won big in an election where 36 out of 100 seats were in play, many victories came in red states. The gains may be short-lived as the tables will be turned in 2016 when the GOP faces a greater number of re-election races. This may force the 22 Republican senators up for re-election in two years' time to six- year terms and several with president aspirations, including Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, to moderate their views to show they can compromise.

Equally, Obama will have to show a new-found willingness to reach consensus with bitter political rivals if he is to protect his legacy as a progressive legislator and a defender of America’s middle class. Simon Carswell is Washington Correspondent