Republican Robert F. McDonnell is off to a sizable early lead in the race for Virginia governor based on the early exit polls, but it is too soon to call the contest. Fox called it for the Publican at 8 pm with McDonnell leading almost 2-1... Lead by almost the same margins in lieutenant governor and attorney general races...
Polls closed moments ago in the contest between McDonnell and Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, a race that turned on competing visions for the commonwealth and changing views about the Obama administration.
There was little sign of the blue tide that swept the state a year ago and played a pivotal role in the election of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president. Instead, voters seemed at least as likely to be voting against the Obama agenda as for it. For each Virginia voter who claimed to be rebuking his administration, there were others who said their decisions were strictly local.
Gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday were closely watched across the nation as barometers on voter attitudes toward Obama and the Democratic Congress a year after his election.
At Stonewall Middle School in Prince William County, John Carte said he had voted for Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) four years ago but switched to Republican this year to cast a ballot for McDonnell. The reason? "Obama," he said. "I came to vote against the policies going on in Washington."