The Republican candidates for statewide office won their elections handily.

Governor

Lieutenant Governor

Attorney General

These results are with 99.7% of precincts reporting. Turnout was 41.2% of active voters, 39.2% of all voters. In the 2005 election (Kaine vs. Kilgore) turnout was 45%. (Last year, in the presidential election, statewide turnout in Virginia among active voters was 76%).

Red vs. Blue localities, 2009

Next steps

In his concession speech, after outlining the familiar campaign issues--jobs, economic development, education, transportation--Deeds came to his peroration:

".... We've got a whole lot of work ahead of us. Just because we didn't get the result we wanted, we don't get to go home and whine. We've got to keep working and keep fighting. And I'm fighting." He did not elaborate further.

In his victory speech McDonnell called Deeds a fine public servant, and vowed to "work with Creigh over the years to come, as he serves in the Virginia Senate."

He expressed a commitment to honor Thomas Jefferson by "keeping taxes and regulation and litigation and spending to a minimum here in Virginia so that freedom can grow."

This was followed with the commitment to honor George Washington's belief in 'the eternal rules of order and right' "by protecting life and liberty and property in the pursuit of happiness." He did not elaborate further, either.

(Dave Sagarin, November 4, 2009)

Note: The Washington quote is from his first inaugural, and the full quote is "The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained . . . the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people."