GOP wins Va. gov race a year after Obama won state

RICHMOND, Va. -- Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the Virginia governor's race Tuesday as independent voters who last year delivered the state to President Barack Obama shifted to the GOP, handing the party a convincing sweep of statewide offices.

Unofficial results showed McDonnell, a conservative and former state attorney general, with nearly two-thirds of the vote over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.

He will be the state's first Republican governor in eight years. "I just got tackled by my five kids and my wife, and there are a lot of tears on my cheeks right now," McDonnell told The Associated Press.

The race, along with the contest for governor of New Jersey, was viewed as the first referendum on the president and the Democratic Congress before the 2010 midterm elections.

"I hope this will kind of send a message to Congress that you better do what we want or we won't re-elect you," said Linda Doland, 60, a nanny in suburban Richmond who voted for McDonnell.

Ali Ganyuma, 39, a physical therapist in Richmond, hoped his vote for Deeds also would send a message to Washington. "The biggest reason why I voted for Creigh Deeds was in the national politics, not local politics, because the right wing might take these as an ultimatum, a verdict on Obama's administration," he said.

A year ago, Obama became the first Democrat in 44 years to carry Virginia in a presidential race. This time voters expressed angst about major Obama initiatives such as health care, energy and stimulus spending.

But McDonnell dominated the campaign's central issues: jobs and the economy.

In Associated Press surveys at polling places statewide, about eight in 10 voters said they were worried about the direction of the nation's economy, and the majority of those favored McDonnell.