VA Exit Polls Have Closed, McDonnell Leads

Exit polls show McDonnell with early lead in Va. gubernatorial race


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.

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."

As Tuesday's warm afternoon gave way to a chill evening breeze on the outskirts of Purcellville, a steady stream of rush-hour voters filed into the basement of the Hamilton Baptist Church, where precinct chief Mary Ann Good said turnout was on track to surpass the expected 40 percent. By 5 pm, about 1350 of 3660 registered voters had already voted.

Voters bathed their hands in sanitizer to ward off the swine flu. But few of them spent much time waiting in line. Turnout seemed on track to compare to the 2005 gubernatorial contest, which drew 45 percent of registered voters to the polls. Few glitches were reported.

A handful of the state's 2,300 precincts were forced to switch to paper ballots because a variety of problems made the electronic machines unusable. Nancy Rodrigues, secretary at Virginia State Board of Elections, said all problems were minor and quickly resolved.

Although partisan pundits differ on the extent to which a Republican win in Virginia -- or in New York or New Jersey, which also have statewide elections Tuesday -- would reflect on the Obama White House, both gubernatorial candidates in Virginia made the president a central part of their campaigns.

McDonnell, who had a substantial lead in pre-election polls, took advantage of souring perceptions of Obama's push for stimulus spending, health-care reform and efforts to limit carbon emissions to address global warming. Deeds tried to invigorate the Democratic base by blazing through the state's urban areas and talking up Obama's victory in Virginia last November.

On Tuesday, McDonnell supporters looked to rein in spending and, in some cases, to send a message to the White House. Those backing Deeds sought to preserve funding for schools and roads, even if it means higher taxes.

"We got shortchanged with Obama," said Doug Schmude, 81, a realtor and World War II veteran who stood outside Sully Elementary School in Sterling in a clot of campaign volunteers.

Schmude said he was a longtime Republican who was moved by his frustration with Obama to volunteer for McDonnell -- the first time in his life he had worked on a campaign. Obama's policy "czars" are particularly troublesome, Schmude said. "They're socialists . . . I didn't fight for this country for those clowns to get in."

Other voters said they thought Deeds had more to offer than was evident from his campaign, which many described as poorly executed and overly negative.

Will Marshall, 57, who works for the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank, said Deeds had the most "credible" transportation plan but had not explained it well to voters. "I don't think he ran the best campaign," said Marshall, who voted at Clarendon United Methodist Church in Arlington. "I think he was focused on the negatives when he should have been defined in the positives," Marshall said.

Evans Chamberlain, a 26-year-old magazine editor, said she thought Deeds would do more than McDonnell to protect the environment and fix the economy. Chamberlain said she also was disturbed after reading McDonnell's 20-year-old graduate school thesis, which criticized working women, single mothers and homosexuals. "I'm a woman and I read his thesis and I couldn't really vote for him," she said after casting her ballot at the Methodist church.

Also on the ballot in Virginia are candidates for lieutenant governor, attorney general and the House of Delegates. Polls opened at 6 a.m. and will stay open until 7 p.m.

Obama campaigned for Deeds in the closing days of the campaign, and national Republican leaders lent their support to McDonnell. At least some voters in Northern Virginia said the president's support made a difference.

"Deeds is a little weak, but since Obama backed him, I back him," said 73-year-old Woodbridge resident William Mulgrew, who voted at Featherstone Elementary School. He said he supports Deeds's position on education and believes the Democrat will direct more transportation dollars to Northern Virginia.

Karl Johnson, a 27-year-old consultant, said he voted for Deeds at Arlington Central Library because he felt that McDonnell's conservative positions "may take us back 40 to 50 years . . . I would hate to see the good work Obama is doing not benefit Virginia."

But others said they were distressed about the direction the country seemed to be taking and were voting for Republican candidates in part as a way to slow the pace of change. "I lean to the right and [government] is going way too left for me," said Dick West, 49, who works as a construction supervisor and cast his ballot at Antietam Elementary School in the Occoquan district, in northern Prince William County.

By most accounts, Deeds faces a more difficult task than McDonnell in drawing out his party's base to vote. Polls show that Republicans, hungry after years of electoral defeats in Virginia, appear headed to vote in large numbers but that Democrats are unexcited about Deeds. McDonnell's two ticket mates, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II of Fairfax County, the Republican candidate for attorney general, also have polled well ahead of their Democratic opponents in recent surveys.

"The dynamics are that the party out of power is energized," said Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "This electorate is going to be so disproportionately Republican that if it had shown up last year, John McCain would have handily won."

State election officials said they were hoping for a voter turnout rate of about 45 percent, which would be on par with recent governor's races. Hitting 45 percent, or 2.2 million voters, would set a record for a Virginia governor's race, although it would fall below turnout in last year's president election, when 3.8 million Virginians voted.

About one-third more voters -- 99,000 -- have cast absentee ballots than four years ago, according to the State Board of Elections. It was unclear whether that number swelled because more voters are using the absentee system or because voter enthusiasm is higher.

McDonnell, 55, the former state attorney general and a social and fiscal conservative, has emphasized bread-and-butter issues, including jobs, taxes and road improvements, to gain support from the right and center of the political spectrum.

Deeds, 51, has struggled to introduce himself to densely populated Northern Virginia. The 18-year state senator from rural Bath County in western Virginia was attacked for supporting a tax increase to pay for road improvements, which hurt him in the state's rural, more conservative swaths.

"I think taxes are high enough," said James Thomas, a 39-year-old accountant, who cast his ballot for McDonnell at the Methodist church in Arlington. He said he was most concerned with fixing the economy and limiting taxes and the size of government.

Eileen Cutrona, who described herself as a staunch conservative worried about taxes and transportation, said she voted a straight Republican ticket. The 51-year-old employee of the Arlington public schools said McDonnell "was straightforward with his plan for transportation," while Deeds was never really clear about what his plan and ultimately came off as confusing.

Several voters said they were voting strictly on local issues and did not see the results as a bellwether for either national party.

"This idea that the Virginia race is a test for Obama defies tradition," said Marshall, the Deeds supporter who works for the progressive think tank.

Chamberlain, the magazine editor, agreed. "I don't think of my local vote in terms of national politics," she said. "This is for Virginia state's election. It's about Deeds and McDonnell."

Deeds and his allies used McDonnell's decades-old thesis in attack ads and speeches that painted McDonnell as a radical conservative. But polls conducted in the weeks before the election raised questions about whether that tactic will prove effective -- most likely voters see Deeds as too negative, they found.

U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) added to the political polarization by calling Virginia's Republican slate the "Taliban ticket."

"I am so disgusted with elections," said Syble Kincannon, a retired U.S. Forest Service employee from Sterling. She said both candidates for governor were guilty of negative campaigning, but "Deeds has been the worst." She nevertheless voted for Deeds, she added -- "not necessarily to support Obama but to support his agenda. I think he's going in the right direction with every issue -- he's going to end up being one of our great presidents."

Arlington resident Clare Beam, 32, also voted for Deeds. "I think Bob McDonnell is terrifying," she said. "I think he is bad for women and an obstruction for a progressive Virginia."

But turnout was very light at her precinct, Claremont Immersion Elementary, and at other polling places in Arlington that are traditionally Democratic strongholds. Between 60 and 80 percent of the precinct's voters usually turn out between 6 a.m. and 1 p.m., said Jerry Gideon who has been precinct chief for the last eight years. By noon Tuesday, fewer than 30 percent had come.

"I'm a little surprised by the number, quite frankly," Gideon said. "This feels like a primary, not a general election."

McConnell mingled with voters at Riverside Elementary School in Alexandria Tuesday morning for about an hour after casting his own ballot. He vowed that if elected, he would focus on what has been the "heart and soul" of his campaign: growing Virginia's economy by creating jobs and creating incentives to bring new businesses to the state.

"I'm going to be a common sense, practical, results-oriented governor," McDonnell said. Asked if he would veto funding for Planned Parenthood, McDonnell only said he would stick to "those traditional values that I learned from my parents right here in Northern Virginia."

Deeds voted in Bath County with his family earlier in the day.



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Sources: Washington Post, Google Maps