While it may seem it was largely Republicans who went to the polls this week to signal anger about the nation's lost jobs, it was Independents and swing voters whose ballots more often reflected dismay about America's economy, one election expert told those assembled at a post-election conference hosted by the Public Affairs Council and CQ-Roll Call Group.

Stuart Rothenberg, a veteran election analyst, said many Republican voters instead "felt the (Obama) administration had gone too far" with its stimulus bill, health care reforms and auto company bailouts.

"You were angry because you thought this government was too expansive... was getting into your life and telling you what to do," Rothenberg said in explaining the GOP election wave that wrested the House from Democrats, helped Republicans pick up six Senate seats and translated into an avalanche of GOP wins in gubernatorial and state legislative races.

The day-long conference, "Election Impact," was held Thursday at Washington, D.C.'s, Ronald Reagan International Trade Center. It drew more than 400 participants and featured some of the nation's leading political experts, reporters and pollsters.

Rothenberg was among several speakers who analyzed why voters - just two years after handing the GOP-controlled White House to Democrat Barack Obama - would decide this week to hand the Democrat-controlled House to Republicans. The presenters offered many explanations, including voter discontent about the economy, about Obama's high-priced domestic agenda and about unpredictable swing voters who associate with neither party, but cast ballots based on issues and their "mood."

For swing voters, this week's election "was about jobs," Rothenberg said. "Swing voters are more casual voters. They don't pay as much attention to politics. These people are sensitive to mood, and [lack of] jobs created the mood."

Perhaps most arresting, Rothenberg said, was that although 57 percent of 2006's Independent voters chose Democrats and 39 percent picked Republicans, this year's Independents did an about-face, with 56 percent choosing GOP candidates and 38 percent choosing Democrats.

"That is a stunning turnaround," he said, pointing out that during the first quarter of 2009, Obama's approval ratings were in the low- to mid-60s and voters were still blaming the country's economic woes on former president Bush. "One and a half years later, the Republicans were the party of change."

Not only was week's electorate was far whiter, older and more Republican than during the 2006 or 2008 elections, they often chose Republicans whom Rothenberg called "really different" - newcomers with no political experience who range from former pizza house owners to former dentists. And these incoming Republicans, he said, insist they won't "sell out" to the Washington "establishment" as they believe the 1994 "freshmen" Republicans did after being in office a few years.

"They saw the class of 1994 as people who caved," Rothenberg said. "I'm not saying they're right or they're wrong, but they're different."

Such conservative idealism will no doubt present a challenge to House Republican leaders who've "got a balancing act to do," Rothenberg said, noting that those belonging to the Tea Party movement ""won't respond to some sophisticated political analysis of what they should do" once in office.

The newcomers will also present a challenge to Obama, who must decide whether he will handle the GOP wave as former president Clinton did after the 1994 elections by acknowledging that the "era of big government is over."