Republican wins seen as setback for Obama

REPUBLICANS inflicted a double blow on United States President Barack Obama's Democratic Party, winning gubernatorial races in two states that had backed him last year.

The Republican victories on Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey are a setback for Obama as he struggles to overhaul the U.S. health care system, win passage of climate change legislation, and build political support for his handling of the war in Afghanistan.

They could also be ominous for Democrats ahead of next year's midterm elections, when a third of the Senate, all of the House of Representatives and most governorships are on the ballot.

Tuesday's elections are bound to energize Republicans, who lost control of Congress in 2006 and the White House last year.

In Virginia, Bob McDonnell, a former conservative state attorney general, easily defeated R. Creigh Deeds to become the state's first Republican governor in eight years.

Last year, Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1964.

In the traditionally Democratic state of New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie, a former corruption-busting federal prosecutor, narrowly defeated Gov. Jon Corzine, a billionaire former Wall Street executive, by a margin of 49 percent to 45 percent.

In both states, voters who had been crucial to Obama's victory last year voted overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate.

Democrats took some solace by winning the closely watched special election for a Republican-held vacant seat in the 23rd Congressional District in New York state that highlighted fissures between moderates and conservatives in Republican ranks.

Still, exit polls showed more than four in 10 voters in Virginia said their view of Obama factored into their choice. Those voters roughly split between expressing support and opposition for the president.

In New Jersey, slightly more voters said the president did not factor into their choice.

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