WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - Democrats won complete control of the Virginia government for the first time in a generation on Tuesday (Nov 5) and claimed a narrow victory in the Kentucky governor's race, as Republicans struggled in suburbs where President Donald Trump is increasingly unpopular.

In capturing both chambers of the legislature in Virginia, Democrats have cleared the way for governor Ralph S. Northam, who was nearly driven from office earlier this year, to press for measures tightening access to guns and raising the minimum wage that have been stymied by legislative Republicans.

In Kentucky, governor Matt Bevin, a deeply unpopular Republican, refused to concede the election to his Democratic challenger, attorney general Andy Beshear. With 100 per cent of the precincts counted, Mr Beshear was ahead by 5,100 votes.

Mr Beshear presented himself as the winner, telling supporters that he expected Mr Bevin to "honour the election that was held tonight".

"Tonight, voters in Kentucky sent a message loud and clear for everyone to hear," Mr Beshear said. "It's a message that says our elections don't have to be about right versus left, they are still about right versus wrong."

Mr Bevin asserted to supporters that "there have been more than a few irregularities", without offering specifics.

Mr Bevin's troubles did not appear to be a drag on other Republicans, who captured every other statewide race in Kentucky. Mr Daniel Cameron handily won the attorney general's race, becoming the first African-American to win the office and the first Republican to do so in over 70 years.

And Republicans did manage to win the governor's mansion in Mississippi as lieutenant governor Tate Reeves defeated attorney general Jim Hood in an open-seat election. The final governorship up for grabs in these off-year campaigns is in Louisiana, where governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, is facing reelection a week from Saturday.

Other candidates besides Mr Cameron in Kentucky also made history on Tuesday night. In Virginia, Ms Ghazala Hashmi, a Democrat, was the first Muslim woman elected to the state Senate, capturing a suburban Richmond district. And in Arizona, Ms Regina Romero was headed towards victory in the Tucson mayor's race, becoming the first woman and first Latina to lead that city.

In New York City, Mr Jumaane D. Williams, a committed progressive, won reelection as public advocate.

In Virginia, where Northam and two other statewide Democrats were pressured to resign following a series of scandals earlier this year, the party overcame its own self-inflicted challenges by harnessing voter antipathy towards Mr Trump to win a series of seats. For the first time since 1993, Democrats control both chambers in the legislature and the governor's office.

Linking Republican incumbents to the unpopular president and criticising them for opposing gun control measures in the aftermath of a mass shooting in Virginia Beach in May, Democratic challengers built their victory with strong showings in suburbs stretching from outside Washington to Richmond and Hampton Roads.

Ten years after Republicans last won a statewide election there, the legislative victories cemented Virginia's evolution to becoming a reliably blue state.

Mr Northam, who admitted and then denied wearing blackface as a young man, said on Tuesday night that Virginia voters made clear they "want us to defend the rights of women, LGBTQ Virginians, immigrant communities and communities of colour". And he vowed to broaden access to healthcare, improve public schools, combat climate change and pass gun control legislation.

On a day of state and local elections that illustrated the country's growing polarisation, red-state Republicans sought to frame their campaigns as a test of loyalty to Trump while Democrats in more liberal states tied their opponents to a president loathed in blue America. Coming one year before the presidential election, the races reflected the country's increasingly contentious politics and the widening rural-urban divide.

Nowhere was that more apparent than in Kentucky, where Mr Beshear ran far better than national Democrats in the state's lightly-populated counties but built his advantage thanks in large part to his overwhelming strength in the state's cities and suburbs.

Mr Beshear's performance demonstrated that Mr Trump's popularity alone is insufficient for Republicans, even in one of the most conservative regions in the country. Mr Bevin and national Republican groups, grasping for ways to overcome Mr Bevin's weakness, sought to turn the election into a referendum on Mr Trump, national issues and the Democratic impeachment inquiry.

And the president himself stood alongside Mr Bevin on Monday night in Lexington to argue that, while the combative governor is "a pain in the ass", his defeat would send "a really bad message" beyond Kentucky's borders.

But three years after handing the president a 30-point victory, Kentucky's voters appeared to put their displeasure with the conservative Bevin, his controversial policies and even more controversial personality, over their partisan preferences.

Mr Beshear, a 41-year-old moderate whose father preceded Mr Bevin in the governor's mansion, sidestepped questions about Mr Trump and impeachment while keeping his distance from national Democrats. He focused squarely on Mr Bevin's efforts to cut healthcare and overhaul the state's pension programme while drawing attention to the governor's string of incendiary remarks, including one that suggested striking teachers had left children vulnerable to molestation.

Yet even as he sought to steer a middle path, Mr Beshear benefited from liberal enthusiasm, running up wide margins in the state's two largest cities, Louisville and Lexington.

In a characteristically truculent Twitter thread on Tuesday as voting was underway, Mr Bevin snapped at the "historically challenged national media" for being surprised at the competitiveness of the Kentucky race, pointing out that only four Republicans had been elected governor since the 1920s and that registered Democrats in the state still outnumbered registered Republicans.

He did not mention that this partisan registration gap has considerably shrunk in recent years, nor that Mr Trump romped there three years ago.

Republican candidates in prominent governor's races have linked themselves to Mr Trump at every turn, joining him for rallies in their states and assailing their Democratic rivals for their party's effort to impeach the president.

While Mr Trump was embraced by Republicans, the Democratic standard-bearers in the three contests shunned their more liberal presidential contenders and refused to support the impeachment inquiry, not wanting to fuel the Republican strategy of making the red-state races a referendum on the president.

In Virginia, the only Southern state Mr Trump lost, it was Republicans who were distancing themselves from their national party and a president who has alienated the suburban voters they needed to retain control of the state legislature. While the president stayed away from Virginia, despite its proximity to the White House, every major Democratic presidential hopeful was welcomed with open arms to campaign with the party's candidates in a state that has not elected a statewide Republican in a decade.

In all four states, television commercials and campaign mailers were filled with mentions of Mr Trump (positively and negatively) as well as of national Democratic leaders such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Bernie Sanders and the so-called Squad of freshman House Democrats (negatively). And the same hot-button issues that have consumed a gridlocked Washington in recent years have also played a central role in races that in the past would have been dominated by talk of taxes, transportation spending and education.

In the three conservative states, the Republicans targeted the Democrats with ads portraying them as soft on illegal immigration; in Virginia the Democrats accused the Republicans of opposing gun control because of their fealty to the National Rifle Association.

Predictably, it was the Democrats in the red states and Republicans in increasingly blue Virginia who gamely sought to localise the races. Mr Beshear and Jim Hood hammered their Republican opponents on their records and issues unique to Kentucky and Mississippi while casting themselves as pragmatists with little allegiance to their national party. Suburban Virginia Republicans focused on their dedication to constituent service, including filling potholes, and trumpeted their willingness to break from party orthodoxy on some issues.

In Kentucky, Mr Bevin's inflammatory conduct appeared to have persuaded some voters, from both parties, to vote for Mr Beshear. Mr John Brown, who has worked in heating and air-conditioning for more than 30 years, said that he has wavered between parties over the years. This time, he voted for Mr Beshear. "I watch the news, and that's how I vote," he said.

"He has poor manners," Mr Brown, 62, said, adding that he does not care for his hotheaded temperament, which was apparent when Mr Bevin spoke.

"You can tell his blood pressure is rising."