RICHMOND — Former attorney general Bob McDonnell was elected the state’s 71st governor by a decisive margin today.

McDonnell soundly defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds, a state senator from Bath County. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling won a convincing re-election victory, and Republican state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli of Fairfax County won the contest for attorney general.

McDonnell, 55, won with a message aimed squarely at voters’ concerns about the economy while downplaying his staunch conservative positions on social issues. Just one year after Democrat Barack Obama carried Virginia in the presidential election, McDonnell found the state’s political landscape to be fertile ground for a Republican revival.

Pre-election polls indicated that McDonnell gained significant support from independent voters who were essential to the elections of the past two Democratic governors. Deeds could not reassemble the coalition that worked for Mark Warner in 2001 and Tim Kaine in 2005, and he struggled to inspire voters who were motivated by Obama’s candidacy. Obama made two campaign appearances for Deeds, the latter coming last week in Norfolk.

The Virginia race was watched nationally for clues about voter attitudes a year after Obama’s election. Virginia has not elected a governor from the party of a sitting president since 1973. The Republican sweep also is a blow to Kaine, Obama’s handpicked chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who committed $6 million in national party funds to help Deeds and state Democrats.

McDonnell promoted his own ideas for creating jobs and keeping the state competitive and took strong stands against national Democratic proposals on labor relations and controlling greenhouse gas emissions that were largely opposed by the state’s business community.

He also pushed a package of transportation funding proposals that relies on new debt, tolls, selling off the state’s liquor stores and using revenue that typically goes toward other state services. He said he would not increase taxes to solve the state’s road and transit problems and pounded Deeds for being open to tax increases.

The former attorney general ran a disciplined campaign that was rattled only briefly by the discovery of a 20-year-old academic thesis which raised questions about his attitudes on women’s rights and gay rights. McDonnell wrote the thesis while pursuing masters and law degrees at Regent University, founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. He moved quickly to distance himself from some aspects of the paper when it was made public in late August, and kept his focus on economic issues.

McDonnell will take office in January and confront a budget crisis that likely will test his ability to deliver on some campaign promises. Outgoing Gov. Tim Kaine has faced $7 billion in revenue shortfalls in the two-year budget cycle that expires June 30, and another shortfall is anticipated for the upcoming budget.

Deeds, 51, stunned political observers in June by trouncing two better-funded rivals in the Democratic primary. But after winning the nomination, Deeds never settled on a clear message and struggled to articulate a plan to generate revenue for transportation, an issue he called his top priority. He initially gained some traction in the polls attacking McDonnell’s thesis, but later surveys suggested that the barrage created negative perceptions of the Democrat’s campaign.