Working-class white voters continued their decades-long defection from the Democratic Party.
The president was a major drag on his party, particularly given a challenging Senate map.
Turnout was historically low, even for a midterm election.
The 2014 Republican landslide has both parties poring over the data, hoping to glean insights about the current state of the electorate before the 2016 election. But it might take until the next presidential cycle to answer the most pressing question: Is Republicans’ 2014 success the result of significant changes in how voters view the two parties, or is the structural difference between the electorates in presidential and midterm years so great that Democrats still maintain a strong demographic advantage going into 2016?
After a series of discussions with political experts, pollsters and strategists, here are the five things we learned about American voters this year.