--- title: Obama Resists Course Change After Election Rebuke description: Despite ceremonial overtures to Republicans on their retaking the majority, Obama appeared unmoved by the results Wednesday canonical: https://time.com/3559601/obama-resists-course-change-midterm-elections/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-06T01:01:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:03:20.289Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obama Resists Course Change After Election Rebuke og:description: Despite ceremonial overtures to Republicans on their retaking the majority, Obama appeared unmoved by the results Wednesday og:url: https://time.com/3559601/obama-resists-course-change-midterm-elections/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7780389baf394298/698764d5cd6848843a0978fb/britain-first-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: President Obama Holds News Conference at the White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama Resists Course Change After Election Rebuke twitter:description: Despite ceremonial overtures to Republicans on their retaking the majority, Obama appeared unmoved by the results Wednesday twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7780389baf394298/698764d5cd6848843a0978fb/britain-first-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama Resists Course Change After Election Rebuke > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=8b97bcea-fb70-44bc-8211-fa987906cc29&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Obama on Midterm Elections [Watch (HLS stream): Obama on Midterm Elections](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YgAzmeYS.m3u8) (1:14)  _Published 2014-11-05. Obama on Midterm Elections_ by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Nov 6, 2014 1:01 AM UTC by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Nov 6, 2014 1:01 AM UTC President Barack Obama sought Wednesday to reassure angry voters, who rejected Democrats up and down the ballot and from coast to coast Tuesday, that he was paying attention. “I want you to know that I hear you,” he said at the beginning of his traditional postelection press conference. But the thrust of the 73-minute exercise in self-immolation indicated that while he may have heard, he wasn’t following their advice. Despite ceremonial overtures to Republicans on their retaking the majority, Obama appeared unmoved by the results Wednesday, promising to hear Republicans out, but not to stray from his path. On immigration reform, Obama vowed to plow ahead with unilateral action. On minimum wage, he pledged to keep up the fight despite GOP opposition. Shaking up his White House staff? “Probably premature,” he said. He called, for the umpteenth time, for Congress to take up the banner of additional transportation infrastructure spending, which has fallen on deaf ears in each previous iteration. Even if no one else is, Obama made it clear: he is still a believer. After his party’s latest rebuke, he is chastened, but not changed. His only concession: the famously Washington-averse Obama said he’d consider sharing a bourbon with Mitch McConnell or playing another round of golf with John Boehner. “I still believe in what I said when I was first elected six years ago last night,” Obama said. “For all the maps plastered across our TV screens today, and for all the cynics who say otherwise, I continue to believe we are simply more than just a collection of red and blue states. We are the United States.” The President, who endlessly predicted his re-election would “break the fever” in Washington, seemed unfazed by the obvious fact that it had intensified. “I maybe have a naive confidence that if we continue to focus on the American people, and not on, you know, our own ambitions or image or, you know, various concerns like that, that you know, at the end of the day when I look back I’m going to be able to say the American people are better off than they were before I was President,” he added. If it seemed familiar, it was. In 2010, Obama was reading from much the same script. “I do believe there is hope for civility. I do believe there’s hope for progress,” he said, moments before declaring he’d been subject to a “shellacking.” In 2014, Obama dispensed with providing Republicans the satisfaction of characterizing his party’s defeat, saying only “Republicans had a good night.” But in doing so, he reinforced the perception that he’d internalized little of the results. “It doesn’t make me mopey; it energizes me because it means that this Democracy’s working,” Obama said. Obama’s approach contrasted with the newly promoted McConnell, who was more disciplined in a press conference of his own earlier Wednesday in Kentucky, choosing not to express his beliefs and instead to take a more workman-like approach about what he hopes to accomplish in the majority. _Read next:_ [_Obama Says He Wants to ‘Get Stuff Done’_](http://time.com/3559459/obama-get-stuff-done-midterms-elections/?xid=time%5Freadnext) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Good afternoon everybody, have a seat. Today, I had a chance to speak with John Boehner, and congratulated Mitch McConnell on becoming the next Senate Majority Leader. I told them both that I look forward to. Finishing up this Congress's business and then working together for the next two years to advance America's business. Congress will pass some bills I can not sign. I'm pretty sure I'll take some actions that some in Congress will not like. That's natural. That's how our democracy works [ MUSIC ] But we can surely find ways to work together on issues where there's broad agreement among the American people. To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two- thirds of the voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too. All of us have. To give more Americans a reason to feel like the ground is stable beneath their feet. That the future is secure. That there's a path for young people to succeed. And, that folks here, in Washington are concerned about them. 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