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Election 2011: Voters put on the brakes

In 2006, voters dethroned House Republicans. Two years later, Democrats were on a roll as Barack Obama won the White House. In 2010, voters alarmed over the growing cost and reach of the federal government booted his party from control of the House and rehired the GOP in a landslide.

In 2006, voters dethroned House Republicans. Two years later, Democrats were on a roll as Barack Obama won the White House. In 2010, voters alarmed over the growing cost and reach of the federal government booted his party from control of the House and rehired the GOP in a landslide.

Results from Tuesday's off-year elections, with setbacks for the small-government tea party movement and social conservatives, suggest that American voters are far from settled heading into 2012.

In Ohio, voters repealed Republican Gov. John Kasich's law limiting collective-bargaining rights for public employees by a margin of 63 to 37 percent. In New Jersey, Democrats expanded their control of the state legislature despite the gravitational pull of Republican Gov. Christie. Republicans claimed control of the state Senate in Virginia, though that rests on an 86-vote lead in one district.

And in Mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the nation, a majority of 55 percent defeated a proposed "personhood amendment" to the state constitution that would have declared human life begins at conception, effectively banning abortion.

If there was one thread running through the results, analysts said, it may be that voters wanted to put the brakes on measures (and politicians) they felt went too far.

In other words, widespread frustration with the power of public-sector unions does not mean support for taking away the workers' bargaining rights. And while Mississippi voters overwhelmingly tell pollsters they oppose abortion rights, they did not sign off on a broadly written measure that some experts warned would ban common forms of birth control, and even some infertility treatments.

"I don't think the public is very interested in positions or measures that can be seen as extreme," Chris Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College, said Wednesday. "People don't want to engage in ideological warfare - they're looking for reasonable approaches to solving serious problems."

Borick believes the public has shifted to the right, particularly on fiscal issues. Republican leaders reacted to Tuesday by arguing that the tea party-led revolt against government spending already had set the climate for 2012 and nothing fundamental had changed.

"The Republican momentum generated in the wake of the 2010 elections is still present," said Frank Donatelli, chairman of GOPAC, which works to elect conservatives. "The unpopularity of President Obama and the utter failure of his economic policies make the GOP the logical home for those seeking change."

In some cases, the messages voters sent were muddled. The Ohioans who did not want to end public-sector unions also voted for a largely symbolic amendment banning government mandates that people buy health insurance, a key feature of Obama's health-care restructuring law.

While Mississippians balked at declaring a fertilized egg a person, they also overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure that limits the government's right to seize private property by eminent domain for public ends. So the libertarian wing of the tea party won a victory while Christian and social-issues conservatives had a setback.

And then there were local factors. The conservative Education Action Group, which is critical of teachers' unions, said that labor and its Democratic allies were better organized in Ohio and outspent proponents of the collective-bargaining ban by $30 million to $9 million.

In Pennsylvania, election results were mixed. Democrats grabbed control of the Montgomery County courthouse for the first time ever, for instance - but Republicans swept to power in traditionally Democratic Westmoreland County, a growing suburban extension of Pittsburgh.

"I've never been overly sold on the idea that off-year elections tell us anything wildly insightful about the next year's election, but sometimes they give us glimpses of broader tends emerging," Borick said. "Voters seem to be sending the message to elected officials that there's no comfort zone. Don't take anything for granted."