I.N.N. World Report

US voters delivered a sharp rebuke to Barack Obama Tuesday by rejecting his allies in Virginia, the swing state that helped deliver him the White House a year ago, and New Jersey, where no Republican had won since 1997. Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate, trounced his Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds, for whom Obama had campaigned, by 17 points to become Virginia governor. The results were seen by many as a mini-referendum on Obama’s presidency. The Democrats’ defeats could imperil Obama’s push for health-care reform by making conservative Democrats wary of supporting it for fear of losing their seats in next year's mid-term elections. In what could become the model for a national Republican revival, McDonnell ran as a conservative on fiscal issues but played down his social conservative credentials and resisted offers from Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and darling of the Right, to campaign for him. Source