grassley_head_shotTuesday’s election results should be greeted with happiness for Republicans but they should not be seen as a public repudiation of President Obama, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday morning.

“I don’t think it’s a referendum on Obama,” the Republican lawmaker said in a conference call with reporters. “I think it’s a — it’s a referendum on some of his programs — not that his programs are not well-intentioned, but are they working and, in some instances, are they going too far?”

Republicans won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia Tuesday night, two states Obama carried in 2008. The lesson of 2009 is that the GOP must court the independent voters who supported Obama but are not solid Democrats, Grassley said.

“You haven’t seen Republican numbers go up. You haven’t seen Democrat numbers go down,” Grassley said. So the real battle is for independents, and that is where the GOP can be victorious.

Grassley said he’s heard voters express a lot of fear in recent months, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect an anti-Obama mentality.

“I never hear anything bad about Obama,” Grassley said. “Now, maybe — maybe you can read a lot into ‘I’m scared’ as being anti-Obama, but nobody brings up that, you know, the Obama name very often, compared to the words ‘I’m scared.’”