Virginia Sen. Creigh Deeds, a rural moderate who was once widely counted out of the Democratic governor’s primary race, rode a surge late in the race to clinch his party’s nomination Tuesday night with 49 percent of the vote.
A Deeds blowout would have sounded impossible a month ago. The Bath County legislator had been outfinanced, trailed in polls and been almost forgotten as his two opponents — former Del. Brian Moran and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe — battled each other.
Instead, Deeds appeared the beneficiary of their sniping. He shined where he wasn’t supposed to, winning in the suburban Washington counties of Arlington and Fairfax with roughly 50 percent margins, and matched or beat McAuliffe in the Tidewater region, where the western Virginia Democrat was expected to be weakest.
In the end, the race wasn’t even a nail-biter; Deeds emerged as the clear victor less than an hour after polls closed at 7 p.m.
“Wow,” a jubilant Deeds started his speech last night shortly after 9 p.m. He thanked his supporters and pointed out that the thunderstorms and rain throughout the day did not keep them away from the polls.
The victory sets the stage for a general election rematch between Deeds and Bob McDonnell, who bested the Democrat in the 2005 attorney general’s race by several hundred votes, the closest margin in a modern statewide election.
After Tuesday’s votes were tallied and Deeds emerged as the clear winner, his opponents pledged their support to the new nominee, striking a conciliatory tone sharply contrasting with the venom of the campaign.
“It may not have turned out the way we had wanted, but it was quite a ride,” McAuliffe told supporters at a rally in Arlington.
Deeds, 51, had been buoyed by a Washington Post endorsement that prompted many Democrats to give him a second look, and he looked immune to 11th-hour attacks on his pro-gun record in the legislature.
The three Democrats together had spent more than $11 million on the primary, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
The GOP quickly went on the attack. The Republican Governors Association, which is McDonnell’s largest donor, issued a statement that Deeds’ record of voting for tax increases makes him “unelectable.”
The 2009 Virginia governor’s race is widely viewed as a bellwether for midterm elections in Congress the next year.
For the GOP, putting a Republican in the executive mansion — in the home state of Gov. Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman — would be seen as a national victory in both symbol and substance.
For Democrats, installing a third consecutive Democratic governor would suggest longevity for their recent gains, in which they have taken control of a majority of the congressional delegation, two U.S. Senate seats and the state Senate. And, for the first time since 1964, the commonwealth in November cast its electoral votes for a Democratic presidential candidate.
A Democratic victory in November would mean busting another decades-long pattern. Since the Carter administration, Virginia — which holds its gubernatorial elections a year after the presidential — has elected a governor of the party opposite the one controlling the White House.
