In his first day as governor-elect, Bob McDonnell yesterday announced his transition committee leaders, including Tom Farrell, chairman and CEO of the state’s largest utility, Dominion Resources.

Bob McDonnell won nine of the state’s 11 congressional districts; only the 3rd and the 8th went for Creigh Deeds, and they are Democratic bastions. The GOP ticket prevailed from top to bottom. Bill Bolling easily won re-election as lieutenant governor. If one year ago an expert had predicted Ken Cuccinelli would be elected attorney general in a landslide, he would have lost his license to practice punditry.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling last night won re-election to the part-time office that traditionally serves as both gubernatorial sidekick and as a steppingstone to the state’s top job. Bolling, 52, an insurance executive from Hanover County, soundly defeated Democratic challenger Jody Wagner of Virginia Beach, the 54-year-old former state treasurer who served as secretary of finance under Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Double-digit victories by Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli, the party’s nominee for attorney general, reversed a recent string of defeats for Republicans.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling easily won a second term as lieutenant governor tonight, defeating Democrat Jody Wagner, a former state treasurer, according to unofficial returns.

Virginians cast ballots for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and all 100 seats in the House of Delegates. Virginia, N.J. are the only states electing governors today.

Republican Bob McDonnell said yesterday that his jobs-and-economy theme has helped push him ahead, while Democrat R. Creigh Deeds continued promoting themes of education and transportation as the gubernatorial campaign headed into its final two days. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour joined McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and GOP attorney general hopeful Ken Cuccinelli for yesterday’s first two stops in Springfield and Fredericksburg, before the trio headed to stops in Chesterfield County and Williamsburg.

Things are looking up for the Republicans’ down-ticket candidates, according to the latest poll for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

McDonnell Deeds The Republican statewide ticket rolled into the GOP heartland yesterday exuding confidence but urging stepped-up get-out-the-vote efforts. “Put up the last sign, talk to someone at the water cooler, send out another e-mail,“ gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell told about 75 Republicans crowded into the Homemades by Suzanne catering shop in Ashland.

Virginia’s lieutenant governor has just two constitutionally mandated responsibilities. Yet the short job description hasn’t stopped Republican Bill Bolling or Democrat Jody Wagner from spending millions of dollars to win election.

Candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general struggle for attention in a scene dominated by the gubernatorial race. The down-ticket nominees run as members of a team yet manage their own campaigns. The frustration is compounded by the point that neither the lieutenant governor nor the attorney general ought to be subject to direct popular vote.

The candidates for lieutenant governor hurled insults at each other last night in their first and only debate. “That was a meaningless platitude about nothing,“ Republican Bill Bolling told Democrat Jody Wagner at one point in the debate at Roanoke College. “Bill, I don’t need a lecture from you about fiscal responsibility,“ Wagner told Bolling at another point.

Television viewers can expect a large onslaught of political-campaign commercials over the next 16 days. In the race for governor, Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell each raised more than $3.5 million in September, with McDonnell taking in $3.8 million and Deeds $3.5 million. But, for the final weeks of the campaign, McDonnell had cash on hand of $4.5 million, compared with Deeds’ $2.7 million.

Another new poll shows Republican Bob McDonnell with a solid lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor. McDonnell, a former state attorney general, led Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, 50 percent to 43 percent with 6 percent undecided in the Rasmussen Reports telephone survey taken Monday. The survey of 500 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Virginia’s Republican candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general hold sizable leads over their Democratic opponents, but large swaths of voters remain undecided, according to a poll conducted for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who is seeking re-election, led Democrat Jody Wagner 44 percent to 31 percent, with 25 percent undecided, in the survey conducted Tuesday to Thursday by Mason Dixon Polling & Research Inc.