Big shout out to independents, conservative Democrats and people who seldom vote!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Actually the data shows that it was those liberal democrats who showed up

I won't bother with the link anymore, or links, since confirmation bias is at play here, and any facts do not matter.

Or at least not for you...since facts do not matter

Once again, liberals made up 20% of the electorate, but only voted 87% for Democrats. Between 2006 and 2010, liberals made up the same proportion of the electorate, and yet actually voted even more strongly Democratic in 2010 than their historical norm. This is remarkable given that 2006 was actually a Democratic wave, and 2010 a Republican one - and 2010 actually had higher overall turnout, 41% versus 36% in 2006. It's not even that the same liberals from 2006 showed up, but in fact some new ones came out too. But they weren't enough.

If you insist on using 2008 as the baseline (debatable since it was a Presidential election), then you'd find that liberals were 22% of the electorate and voted 87% Democratic. So there were a few more liberals, but they were slightly less Democratic. Probably a wash. Even if you want to say this cost the House D's 1-2% of popular vote (a real stretch), you'd still need to account for the other 7-8% of popular vote they lost between 2008 and 2010. That would ignore the problems of comparing Presidential to off years, where some of the more liberal groups like the young are just historically less likely to vote anyway.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/06/1003805/-Did-liberals-really-stay-home-and-cause-the-2010-rout

Now here is one group that actually failed to show up (and will stay home in 2014 from historic records as well.

In 2008, polls showed that young people were overwhelmingly supportive of Obama and the Democrats. And they turned out in droves. According to the research group CIRCLE—The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement—which tracks civic engagement among young voters, 51 percent of 18- to-19-year-olds voted that year.

In 2010, polls showed that young people were still supportive of Obama and the Democrats. But only 20.9 percent of them bothered to vote.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/156470/young-voter-turnout-fell-60-2008-2010-dems-wont-win-2012-if-trend-continues

Oh and Indies, who you are celebrating, favored Republicans in 2010

http://www.gallup.com/poll/141086/independent-voters-favor-gop-2010-election-tracking.aspx

And here from Arizona, which also matches a national trend

Those who believe that independents hold the key to Arizona political results they would find more agreeable should warm up the vocal cords some more. In reality, independent participation in general elections, particularly off-presidential ones, is also anemic.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2014/03/21/independents/6714951/

Not that facts matter, I don't expect them to matter. It is hippy punching time.