Obama suffers twin election defeats
Updated on 04 November 2009
As Barack Obama celebrates the first anniversary of his election victory, New Jersey and Virginia deal a twin blow to the US president by choosing Republican governors. Sarah Smith reports.
The elections were used by some as a referendum on White House policy, and both states switched from Democrat incumbents.
But in a special election in up-state New York, Democrat Scott Murphy triumphed in a congressional seat which had been occupied by a Republican since Ulysses Grant's presidency in the 1870s.
Elsewhere, in the first wave of voting since Mr Obama's inauguration, billionaire Michael Bloomberg was handed a third term as mayor of New York City in a closer than expected ballot.
But Houston will have to wait to see if it is to become the largest city in the US to vote in an openly gay mayor.
City controller Annise Parker won 31 per cent of the vote, putting her in the lead but not by enough to avoid a run-off election.
