We know women played an increasingly important role in this year’s national elections, but we gals had quite an impact on some widely watched local races, too.

Women played an exceptional role in North Carolina’s senatorial showdown, in which Kay Hagan proved victorious over Elizabeth Dole. Dole garnered bad press in the final week after she ran an ad intimating that Hagan was an atheist. Hagan retaliated by releasing a commercial decrying Dole for "bearing false witness." Perhaps that scandal helped push women toward Hagan, who won 55 percent of women voters. 

Another key race went down in Alaska, where longtime Sen. Ted Stevens hoped voters would ignore the fact that he was recently found guilty on eight charges of corruption. Unfortunately for him, Stevens couldn’t win over women, 55 percent of whom voted for his rival, Mark Begich. Ironically, those votes may have complicated Gov. Sarah Palin’s political future.

Many say she needed Stevens to win, because he would have been forced to resign, thus opening his Senate seat, which Palin was said to have an eye on, and giving her a clearer road to a 2012 presidential campaign.

For a bigger breakdown on how women voted across the nation, click here.