Northwestern students followed results of the midterm elections closely Tuesday night, with many surprised by Republican businessman Bruce Rauner’s victory over Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in Illinois’ gubernatorial race.

Students watched as Republican candidates took congressional seats across the nation, extending their majority in the House of Representatives and taking control of the Senate.

Student groups NU Political Union and Politics & Policy co-hosted a nonpartisan watch party off campus on Tuesday, while other students followed the election from their homes.

SESP sophomore Julia Cohen said it was interesting to see a Republican governor elected in a state that normally votes along Democratic lines.

“The election results speaks a lot to how the nation felt about Obama’s second term,” she said. “This is Obama’s home state.”

Races outside of Illinois also drew students’ attention. McCormick freshman Jack Chen said he was surprised by the Republican wins in his home state of Kansas.

“Everywhere I looked on social media, everyone is saying how bad (Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback) is,” Chen said.

Brownback, along with Kansas’ Republican senator and representatives, won re-election.

College Democrats president Quentin Heilbroner said the Democrats’ losses in the midterm elections reflect poor strategizing.

Among other missteps, the Democrats focused too much on scare tactics, ground game and small interest groups, he said.

“We can’t write out those demographics where we’re underperforming, like we’ve been doing in the past,” Heilbroner said. “We can’t run with the assumption that we’re going to lose rural voters, we’re going to lose white. We need to stop fixating on the idea that we should only turn out our base.”

Although Heilbroner said that he believes that Democratic performance in the generals will worsen, others, such as Cohen, put little emphasis on the Republican victory.

“(The Republican victories) probably won’t have an impact because the Republicans only have a simple majority so Obama will veto everything on the table,” Cohen said. “I almost feel like the midterm elections, because they went red, are setting up 2016 to go blue. Democrats will say, ‘Look, Republicans had their chance and they didn’t do anything.’”

Heilbroner also said he hopes fellow Democrats will be motivated for future campaigns.

“While awful, we can look at these results and say, ‘Where have we underperformed?’” Heilbroner said. “This election, while it was worse than 2010, should teach us to fire ourselves up more and expand our base, and how important that is.”

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