[TheRealVille]

DID? YOU? READ? HOW? OBAMA? FARED? IN? VIRGINIA?
I'm out of the idiot's game of Fletcher was more or less corrupt than Dems.

I'm not in VA, and the topic isn't about a one seat gain in VA. The topic is about the controversial issues that the conservatives got handed their ass on. Are you hanging your hat on a one seat gain in VA? You should get out of the game, because you don't have a clue.

Democrats also hung onto the Iowa state Senate and appeared poised to at least hold the GOP to a tie in the Virginia Senate. As of late Tuesday, Virginia Republicans had gained one seat and led by less than 100 votes in another, but needed to gain three to take over the chamber. And in Maine, voters threw out the legislature's attempt to tighten voting restrictions.

The trend was not absolute. Conservatives were victorious on other ballot issues, including one in Ohio to ban health-care mandates -- a symbolic strike against President Obama's health-care reform -- and one in Mississippi to require photo ID to vote. As expected, Republican Phil Bryant easily won Mississippi's gubernatorial election.

But there was no question that on the most controversial questions, voters seemed to recoil from the GOP's attempts to push further to the right. Pearce, in Arizona, was a case in point: He had proudly declared the state's upper chamber a "tea party Senate" and inspired similar immigration proposals across the country. Yet his heavily Republican district threw him out in favor of a fellow Republican with a more conciliatory stance.

Similarly, the "personhood" initiative in Mississippi worried not just liberals but some in the pro-life movement, who thought it could hurt the anti-abortion cause by alienating independent voters or tempting a Supreme Court smackdown. And in Ohio, conservative-leaning blue-collar voters took labor's side against Gov. John Kasich's attempt to roll back union protections even for police and firefighters.