Election paradox: people vote for person who opposes issues they want

One of the puzzling paradoxes of this election was how often voters support the candidate who opposes the issues they care about.    Here are a couple of examples:

In Illinois, voters approved ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage and to put a "tax on millionaires."   Incumbent Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn supported both.    But voters elected the Republican who opposed both measures.    In several others states as well, voters approved a minimum wage hike by a big margin but elected conservative senators who even oppose the concept.

In Colorado, incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall made reproductive rights the central issue of his campaign.   By a large margin, voters rejected --for the third time -- a proposed "personhood" amendment to the state constitution.    At the same time, they ousted Udall and elected Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, who is a co-sponsor of personhood legislation in Congress.   During the campaign he tried to distance himself from it, saying he did not support that policy -- but he has not withdrawn his name as a sponsor.

So what's going on?    We know from past elections that Republicans are great at getting people to vote against their own economic interests -- when they support tax-cutting, spending-cutting representatives, even when those tax cuts will benefit the wealthy and the spending cuts will hurt people like themselves who need government services.

Does this mean our electorate is blind and/or ignorant of the cause and effect relationship between whom they send to congress and what laws get passed?

Is it all just too complicated for the average voter -- so they vote for the one who appeals on some emotional level, regardless of the issues and the consequences?

I said during this campaign that I thought the American voters were smarter than the Republicans gave them credit for.   Maybe I was wrong.

Or is it that the misinformation team of FoxNews, talk radio, and conservative politicians do such a good job that people just wind up confused?   It does take some work, and good choices of news and opinion sources, to be that well-informed electorate mentioned in our Constitution.

Ralph