In a huge upset to US President Barack Obama,a little-known Republican businessman has won a key election to Congress from a heavily Democratic district in New York City. "Mr. President,you are on the wrong track," Republican Bob Turner,70,said after he won the special election yesterday in 9th Congressional District,defeating Democrat David Weprin,55,after a heated campaign. "We've asked the people of this district to send a message to Washington,and I hope they hear it loud and clear," Turner said at his election party in Queens with a packed room,many of them Orthodox Jews. Turner took 54 per cent of the vote to Weprin's 46 per cent,with 100 per cent of the precincts reporting,according to unofficial results from Valerie Vazquez,communications director for the New York City Board of Elections. The district,which covers parts of Brooklyn and Queens,is one of the strongest Jewish districts in the US. Anthony Weiner,who had served in Congress for seven terms,vacated the seat in June after admitting to sending lewd photographs on Twitter. "With the outcome of his own reelection effort 14 difficult months away,President Obama suffered a sharp rebuke Tuesday when voters in New York elected a conservative Republican to represent a Democratic district that has not been in GOP hands since the 1920s," the Washington Post said on the outcome of the election. Turner,the winner,cast the election as a referendum on Obama's stewardship of the economy and,in the state's Ninth Congressional District,which has a large population of Orthodox Jewish voters,the president's position on Israel,the report said. The unexpectedly tight race stirred anxiety among Democrats already worried about elections next year for president,the House and the Senate,The New York Times said. Meanwhile,Republican leaders immediately trumpeted Turner's victory as a sign of trouble for Obama's re-election effort. "An unpopular President Obama is now a liability for Democrats nationwide," Representative Pete Sessions of Texas,the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee,said in a statement as some in the party had turned the New York poll into a referendum on the party and President Obama,ahead of next year's elections.
