Americans see a government that can’t solve their problems

The rapid-fire swing in fortunes for both parties is the result of a narrowly divided nation quick to throw out elected officials seen as slow to improve their lives. To many Americans, government is literally not working, as evidenced by a federal shutdown that has now stretched into the longest in U.S. history.

“It is hard to govern in an era of intense political division," said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. “It fuels an endless throw-the-bums-out electorate."

Presidential administrations like the one run by Lyndon B. Johnson used to be able to get massive—and often expensive—legislation through Congress when party control of Washington switched less frequently.

That got harder as trust in government eroded in the late 1960s as the Vietnam War escalated before falling more in the 1970s amid the Watergate scandal and worsening economic conditions. Only about one in five Americans now trust the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Landslide presidential elections, like the one incumbent Ronald Reagan enjoyed in 1984 when he won 49 states, have also become a thing of the past. As convincing as Trump’s 2024 victory was in the Electoral College, he won only 49.8% of the popular vote.

In the last two decades, control of Congress and the White House has seesawed between the parties more frequently, with the Senate, House and White House all changing hands four times when independents in the Senate caucusing with Democrats are included.

Propelling the shift is the fact that many voters want bigger changes from Washington. Nationwide in the 2024 election, roughly three in 10 voters said they wanted total upheaval in how the country is run, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters. Even if they weren’t looking for something that dramatic, more than half wanted substantial change.

There are limits to what can be gleaned from the most recent elections. Democratic victories in Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial contests and New York’s mayoral race were largely expected in those blue places and off-year elections often reward the party out of power.

Yet the swing in their electorates stands out. Rep. Mikie Sherrill clinched the New Jersey governor’s mansion with a margin more than twice the size of what her party won the state by in last year’s presidential contest. Abigail Spanberger, a former congresswoman who won Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, came close to tripling the margin Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris secured there last year.

New Jersey independent voter Joanna Zeh, a 52-year-old who does marketing work in the telecommunications industry, said she struggled to decide who to support in her state’s race for governor. She backed the losing Republican, but is also not completely happy with her Trump vote from a year ago.

“I have lost faith in our government," she said. “Everybody is just fighting for their sides and not their country. Just look at the shutdown."

New Jersey provided the most instructive laboratory from Tuesday’s balloting to assess the electorate ahead of next year’s critical midterm elections. The state didn’t have as many variables in play as Virginia, near ground zero for the Trump administration’s dismissal of thousands of federal workers as well as furloughs from the continuing government shutdown.

Four in 10 New Jersey voters said they felt “angry" when contemplating the nation’s current course, while another 26% were dissatisfied, the Voter Poll by SSRS showed. More than half—56%—disapproved of how Trump is handling his job.

While some Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, have played down the significance of Democratic wins, Republican pollster Whit Ayres said the GOP would be foolish to ignore the signals sent.

“Small changes in the margins mean large changes in control and large changes in public policy," he said. “Voters are clearly unhappy about the cost of living and the state of the economy."

Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt said deep frustration among voters comes from feeling overlooked and ill-served by the nation’s political establishment. “This anger leads to volatility and powerful, seemingly contradictory messages being sent from one election to the next," he said. “The throughline is the view that our leaders are out of step with the voters."

The flip-flopping has been a pox on Democrats and Republicans, fueled in large part by a nomination process for both parties that often advances candidates near the extremes and uninterested in working across the aisle. That isn’t, however, where the most competitive elections are won and lost.

“Whoever owns the center in American politics owns the country," said Jonathan Cowan, president of a group called Third Way that is trying to push Democrats more to the middle.

Swing voters are “deeply disgusted with the far left and the far right and express their fury every election cycle against the party they believe is more ideologically extreme and out of touch," Cowan said.

Tuesday’s Democratic wins undercut bullish Republican predictions that Trump had orchestrated a durable realignment of the electorate in favor of the GOP. Black and Hispanic voters—both traditionally part of the Democratic base—moved back to Democrats after the president made gains among those voters in 2024.

The two parties have also flipped in the type of voter drawn to them. Democrats once were mostly those without college degrees, while most Republicans were college educated. Noncollege voters are less likely to turn out, except when Trump is on the ballot.

Zelizer, the Princeton University historian, said he expects seesaw elections to be a constant until one of the two parties can “build a broader coalition" that is more enduring. “That’s what has to happen to get out of this," he said.

Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com