NJ's race was more about the disorganization of New Jersey. Had the sitting governor been a Republican, he likely would have lost as well considering the mess the state is in.

I don't know what's with Virginia. Maybe it portends badly for Obama, or maybe the Democrat was just uninspiring. Maybe both. Near as I could tell, Kaine wasn't ineffective.

Upstate New York would probably be Republican still if Republicans got over their unhealthy obsession with homosexuals and started dealing with issues relevant to Upstate New York, like the economy. The region is pretty live-and-let-live when it comes to social issues, but other than that perhaps rather socially conservative. Almost nobody in the northeast wants Texas-style shoot-from-the-hip Christian supremacists.