Disgruntled voters punished President Obama and his party for failing to govern effectively by electing Republicans across the country. The GOP won a Senate majority, strengthened its hold on the House, and elected or re-elected Republican governors. Democrats couldn’t catch a break, with ISIS and Ebola rattling public nerves at the worst possible time. ABC News commentators called it a “bloodbath.” GOP candidates generally outperformed pre-election polls, and celebrity pollster Nate Silver said the profession may have to recalibrate its polling methods.
While voters are angry at Democrats, they’re also skeptical of Republicans, and while they’ve assigned the job of turning the country around to the GOP after the Democrats failed to get it done, the GOP is a fractured party that may be unable to produce much of anything unless they can get their Tea Party faction under control. Meanwhile, this election strengthened the hands of several GOP governors eyeing their party’s 2016 presidential nomination by affirming their electability. That campaign effectively starts tomorrow.
One has to wonder whether America is governable anymore. It faces huge problems, and is divided over what to do about them. The economy is wobbly and a rising standard of living is no longer an American birthright. Income and wealth inequality are unhealthy and getting worse. Domestically, society and culture are in flux. Abroad, global stability is unraveling, and many Americans are unnerved by Muslim terrorism. U.S. policymakers also must deal with a more aggressive Russia and rising Chinese economic and military power. Obama’s essential problem isn’t that he’s black, but that he’s perceived as weak, even in his own party.
The president can’t coast through the next two years, nor can he stonewall the Republican Congress he now faces. If he doesn’t work with them, and lead the country with strength and confidence, 
his party could lose even bigger in 2016.