Robert F. McDonnell scored a landslide victory over R. Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial election Tuesday night as Republicans swept the state’s top three offices and ended nearly a decade of Democratic dominance at the top of the ticket.
Mr. McDonnell, a former attorney general, captured strong support from independents and voters in the Northern Virginia exurbs of Prince William and Loudoun counties that had been key to President Obama’s unexpected victory in the state in 2008.
With 99 percent of the vote counted, Mr. McDonnell led Mr. Deeds 58.7 percent to 41.3 percent, a sizable victory just days after Mr. Obama campaigned with Mr. Deeds. The presidential visit didn’t seem to have much impact on voters, and the Deeds loss lessened Democrats’ optimism that Virginia might be trending toward being a swing state in future elections.
Republican Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II captured the attorney general’s race, and Bill Bolling won re-election as lieutenant governor. It was the first time since 1997 that Republicans captured all three top jobs.
“Working together as Virginians, we will find those new ways to solve the problems that face us and to create more jobs and new opportunities,” Mr. McDonnell told a crowd of about 500 supporters in the ballroom of the Marriott hotel in downtown Richmond.
Thanking those who voted for him, Mr. McDonnell told those who did not support him to give him a chance.
“For those of you that did not support me, I say to you, give me a chance to earn your trust to work with you for the betterment of the commonwealth of Virginia,” he said.
He promised the crowd that he would leave the state in a better shape by the time he leaves office.
Shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m., the upbeat crowd of Republican revelers began to stream into the Marriott ballroom. Supporters held a multitude of signs, from “Bob’s 4 Jobs” to “McDonnell - Governor.”
The crowd of about 500 erupted in cheers and waved their signs when Mr. McDonnell was declared the winner. About 20 minutes later, the cheers sounded again when television news broadcasters announced that Mr. Bolling and Mr. Cuccinelli had won.
The mood was subdued at the Democratic watch party for Mr. Deeds at the Westin Hotel in Richmond. Only about 50 people occupied the room at 8 p.m. A large projection-screen television that had been showing CNN election coverage was switched to a slide show of photos from the Deeds campaign.
Mr. Deeds conceded the race shortly before 9 p.m., telling a crowd of about 150 supporters in a six-minute speech that although he did not like losing, there’s more work to be done.
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“There’s still people that need a voice, and we’re going to give them that voice,” he said. “This chapter is closed, but the next chapter is to be written.”
The loss was a disappointment to a campaign that defeated two better-funded, better-known rivals in the Democratic primary in June but seemed to founder from the beginning against Mr. McDonnell.
Mr. McDonnell raised nearly twice as much as Mr. Deeds for the general election campaign, taking in $21.4 million through last week, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Mr. Deeds raised just over $10 million during the general election campaign and $6.2 million during the primary campaign.
The Republican campaign’s only difficult patch came in late August and early September, when news broke of a 20-year-old graduate school thesis in which Mr. McDonnell said, in part, that homosexuality, working women and abortion were detrimental to American families.
The Deeds campaign referred frequently to the thesis, and polling numbers tightened.
However, voters rejected the campaign’s focus on the thesis. According to a recent Public Policy Poll, 52 percent said they were “very familiar” with the thesis and 59 percent said it made no difference in their vote.
Poll numbers showed that voters thought Mr. Deeds ran a mostly negative campaign, while 56 percent said Mr. McDonnell has run a mostly positive campaign.
Mr. McDonnell drew unexpected support from Northern Virginia, taking both Loudoun and Prince William counties by more than 15 percentage points over Mr. Deeds. The vote was also close in Fairfax County, where Mr. McDonnell led Mr. Deeds 50.6 percent to 49.3 percent with 98 percent of the vote counted.
The victory reverses a string of Democratic wins dating back to 2001, when Mark Warner was elected governor.
Mr. Warner was succeeded by Democrat Tim Kaine in 2005.
In 2006, Democrat Jim Webb won the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican George Allen, and in 2007 Republicans lost control of the state House of Delegates.
In 2008, Republicans lost the seat of retiring Sen. John W. Warner to Mark Warner and saw a Democratic presidential candidate win Virginia for the first time since 1964.
“We sprinted through the tape. We have really had a run of wins recently, and we’ve gotten used to winning in a ways that maybe we haven’t been for a while and that’s tough,” said Mr. Kaine, who also serves as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele, who was in Richmond for Mr. McDonnell’s election night party, said Mr. McDonnell’s victory in Virginia will provide the party with a template for 2010.
“Bob McDonnell translates well. In other words, he takes those principles, his conservative principles, and he applies them in a 21st-century way to the problems that people have,” Mr. Steele said.
Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat who withheld his endorsement, said the state needed a governor with a history of fiscal responsibility and accountability.
“The Democrat didn’t have that to his point of view,” he said.
With Mr. McDonnell’s election, Mr. Wilder said, the new governor will need to “keep an independent hat on, look pragmatically and realistically” at things. He said the Republican must “consider putting necessities before niceties.”
Mr. McDonnell’s victory continues a trend that has seen Virginia’s governor elected from the opposite party as the president since 1977. But early Tuesday the Republican declined to discuss whether the gubernatorial race was a referendum on the Obama administration.
“I’m going to let other people, the experts, make those kinds of decisions,” Mr. McDonnell said. “I decided early on we knew that the fiscal issues that faced Virginia were the ones that voters were most concerned about: jobs, the economy, transportation, energy prices, tuition increases and so forth.”
He also acknowledged that he has his work cut out for him.
“We’re in a tough spot right now, We’ve got cut $6.5 billion out of the budget in the last couple of years. We’ve got a 6.7 percent unemployment rate, those are overwhelmingly the top issues that will face the next governor of Virginia.”
Mr. McDonnell will be sworn in on Jan. 16, three days after the General Assembly convenes for its 60-day session.
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