Major Republican victories in two states last night left the fate of President Obama's signature health reforms in doubt and Democrats licking their wounds a year before the 2010 mid-term elections.

The defeat of Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine by an estimated five points in the New Jersey governor's race was a serious blow for Mr Obama. He had campaigned intensively for Mr Corzine and urged crowds across the state to turn out for him as they did in the historic White House race a year ago.

In Virginia, the Republicans won a clean sweep in contests for Governor, Attorney General and control of the state assembly in a huge swing against the Democrats. The state helped to seal Mr Obama's victory when he carried it by six points last year.

Senior Democrats cast their bleak night as history as usual, noting that the off-year races in these two key states are traditionally won by the party not in the White House. Yet the President campaigned in Virginia as well as New Jersey, turning both gubernatorial elections into tests of his political coat-tails — which now look threadbare.

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The movement that swept Mr Obama to power already looks a diminished force

Tim Reid

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In northern Virginia, turnout was low among the young and black voters who backed Mr Obama in droves last year. As one analyst put it last night: "This shows that the Obama coalition came out for him but can't be counted on to come out for other Democrats."

The results came as Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, warned that Congress may not produce a health reform Bill for Mr Obama to sign until next year. Dozens of moderate "blue dog" Democrats watching yesterday's elections may now demand a more conservative Bill as their price for supporting it, meaning yet more slippage on a defining issue for the presidency.

Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the Virginia governor's race after a campaign focused on the economy and an election in which 39 per cent of voters said that they intended to signal their disapproval of Mr Obama's policies. His opponent, Creigh Deeds, fought a lacklustre campaign in which he refused to call himself an "Obama Democrat".

In New Jersey Mr Corzine, a former investment banker, was ousted by Christopher Christie, a former fundraiser for President George W. Bush.

A year ago, Mr Obama became the first Democrat in 44 years to carry Virginia in a presidential race. This time voters expressed concern about major Obama initiatives on energy and stimulus spending as well as healthcare. Exit polls showed that independents broke heavily for Mr McDonnell.

The results are bound to feed discussion about the state of the electorate and the limits of the President's influence on the party's base. The Republicans' success, especially in Virginia, was hailed by party leaders as proof that they could find a way back from the political wilderness by November 2010. "This reflects a sea change in the electorate," said Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Besides campaigning in person for both Mr Deeds and Mr Corzine, Mr Obama deployed his political campaign arm, Organising for America, to try to ensure the swarms of party loyalists and new voters he attracted in 2008 would turn out.

He also sought to ensure that the Democrats would pick up a vacant upstate New York congressional seat long held by Republicans. In that race Democrat Bill Owens faced conservative Doug Hoffman, and was edging towards a possible upset win last night thanks to the late withdrawal of the mainstream Republican candidate.

The Democrats' most serious challenges next year will come in swing states like Ohio, Colorado and Nevada. In 2010, most governors, a third of the Senate and all members of the House of Representatives will be up for re-election.

Mr Obama was said to be watching basketball rather than the election results last night. That will not lessen his disappointment at the news from New Jersey, a traditionally Democratic-leaning state.

Virginia is a new swing state that has trended Democratic in recent elections after being reliably Republican in national races for many years. It is home to several northern counties filled with the independents who carried Obama to victory last year. He was the first Democrat to win the state in a White House race since 1964.

Exit polls showed that nearly a third of voters in Virginia described themselves as independents, and they preferred the Republican gubernatorial candidate to his Democratic opponent by almost a 2-1 margin. In other races last night, voters in the northeastern state of Maine were too evenly divided to predict a result on a proposal to repeal a law allowing gay marriage. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg won re-election.

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.

In other races, voters in the northeastern state of Maine rejected a state law that would allow same-sex couples to wed. If supporters had prevailed, it would have marked the first time that the electorate in any state endorsed gay marriage.

With more than four-fifths of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 per cent of the vote.

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