From his visit in South Korea, Donald Trump left tyre tracks all over the face of his referred candidate in the Virginia governor's race after voters in several states handed Trumpism a stinging rebuke that brought a Socialist and a Trans-Woman into state government for the first time.

In fact, Trump's record low poll numbers, personal vulgarity, and far right positions proved poisonous to Republicans in many states in the off-year election.

Democrat Ralph Northam defeated Republican Ed Gillespie for Virginia governor on Tuesday night 54 to 45 percent, with the remainder going to a minor party candidate.  The race had been a nail-biter for Democrats, as Gillespie ran a Trump-style campaign of insults, immigration-bashing, and demanding to stop the removal of Confederate war hero statues around the state.  Polls showed the race almost neck-and-neck this morning.

But Virginia has been through the ringer in the last year - especially with the neo-nazi rioting in Charlottesville that resulted in the murder of a peaceful counter protester - and Democratic voters came out in force to put an end to the nonsense.  Northam's lead over Gillespie exceeded expectations, as did the rest of the anti-Trump Left and Center-Left.

"Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for," tweeted Trump, throwing Gillespie under the bus despite having formally endorsed him and recorded robo-calls in his favor.

Trump's stain hurt Republicans all the way down the ballot.  88 nights after white supremacists marched with torches through Charlottesville, voters in the southern state picked African-American Democrat Justin Fairfax as the next Lieutenant Governor.  His Republican opponent Jill Holtzman Vogel embraced Trump and staked out far-right positions on guns, abortion rights and the economy.  Voters said, "nah."  She bitterly refused to mention Fairfax's name in her concession speech.  Sore loser!  Sad!

"The voters looked at the results of 2016 and said we need to set the ship right," said Democrat Mark Herring, who won reelection as Virginia's Attorney General.  He's a long-time defender of LGBT rights, and has sued the Trump administration over its travel ban and its decision to end federal subsidies to health insurers.  He beat Republican John Adams, who ran a losing campaign on opposing gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control, and labor union rights.

Democrat Danica Roem was elected as Virginia's first transgender lawmaker in the state legislature.  She defeated the incumbent Republican Bob Marshall who was particularly salty and insulting, refusing to refer to Ms. Roem as a woman.  He's known as "Bigot Bob" for opposing Marriage Equality and writing a failed bill to force transgender students to use public school bathrooms matching their birth certificates.

Lee J. Carter, a military veteran and member of the Democratic Socialists of America who rejected corporate financing from the Democratic Party, defeated the incumbent Republican in his suburban district outside Washington, DC.  Republicans actually distributed fliers with Carter's face next to Marx, Lenin, Engels, Stalin, and Mao.  Didn't work.

In rural southern Virginia - where any thought of gun control is usually scoffed at - Democrat Chris Hurst defeated his GOP opponent with an anti-gun violence platform.  Hurst was a small-town news anchor who switched to politics after his reporter girlfriend Allison Parker and a camera operator were shot to death live-on-air by a jealous former co-worker who later committed suicide.

Now, let's go around the country:  Charlotte, North Carolina elected its first African American woman mayor.  "Today's an important day because today we made history," said Vi Lyles after her Republican opponent conceded.  "And isn't that what we want for our future?  Isn't that what we want for our children?"

Diversity took a giant step forward in Hoboken, New Jersey, where voters elected its first Sikh mayor.  Ravi Bhalla overcame a racist campaign in which he was depicted as a terrorist because he wears a turban.  Also in New Jersey, Democrat Phil Murphy easily won the right to replace outgoing and deeply unpopular Governor Chris Christie - a close associate of Trump - cementing Democratic control in the Garden State.

New York City's progressive Mayor Bill De Blasio cruised to a reelection victory in Trump's home town.

In conservative Manchester, New Hampshire, Democrat Joyce Craig ousted incumbent Republican Mayor Ted Gatsas.  Craig is the button-down city's first female mayor and first Democrat in the post since 2003.

Maine voters are the first in the nation to approve a measure to expand Medicaid healthcare coverage for low-income residents under the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.  It's a stunning loss for Trump and his ally Maine Governor Paul LePage who oppose Obamacare.