“In the old days, elections mattered more than they do now in the sense that a president who was reelected clearly had a mandate to do something, assuming his margin [of victory] was decent," said Larry Sabato, who directs the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Well, Obama won [the popular vote] by nearly four percentage points.  Decades ago that would have been enough to certainly get his top priority through Congress.  It doesn’t work that way anymore.”

Congress is also expected to tackle difficult partisan issues like gun control and immigration reform this year - two areas where the president has said he would like to see action during his second term.

But Republican analyst Scot Faulkner, who worked for Republicans in the House of Representatives during the 1990s and for the Reagan administration, says the fractious debate over taxes and spending could negatively affect other issues.

“Until people get off the campaign treadmill and think again about governing first and then standing on a record of governing instead of a record of rhetoric, we are going to keep on this treadmill,” said Faulkner.

Although Democrats hold more seats in the new Congress, the split remains between Democrats who hold a majority in the Senate and Republicans who control the House.

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