Associated Press

Republican governor-elect Bob McDonnell hugs his daughters Jeanine (right) and Cailin (center) after his acceptance speech Tuesday night in Richmond.

Hyunsoo Leo Kim | The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot

Creigh Deeds (left) consoles daughter, Susanna, 17, Tuesday night at a Richmond hotel. Also present are (left to right) daughter Amanda, wife Pam, daughter Rebecca and son Gus.

Associated Press

Republican governor-elect Bob McDonnell (center) holds hands with attorney general-elect Ken Cuccinelli (left) and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling during their victory party Tuesday in Richmond.

RICHMOND -- The Republican Party roared back to life in Virginia on Tuesday.

Former Attorney General Bob McDonnell was elected the state's 71st governor in a landslide, leading a GOP sweep of Virginia's statewide offices and ending the Democrats' eight-year reign in the executive mansion. McDonnell's victory margin -- at 18 percent with 99 percent of the vote counted Tuesday night -- would stand as the largest ever by a Republican.

Republicans also strengthened their majority in the House of Delegates, gaining what looked to be five seats late Tuesday night. It's the first time Republicans have gained seats since 2001.

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

McDonnell barely beat Deeds in the 2005 election for attorney general, a race so close that a court-supervised recount was needed to determine the winner. But there was little drama in their 2009 rematch. McDonnell held solid leads in public opinion polls throughout the last month of the campaign and continued to build momentum through Election Day.

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.

"Working together as Virginians, we will find those new ways to solve the problems that face us and to create more jobs and new opportunities," McDonnell told euphoric supporters during his victory speech inside a brimming ballroom at a downtown Richmond hotel.

An emotional Deeds, joined by his wife and four children, delivered his concession speech to about 200 supporters in Henrico County and urged them to keep fighting for the same causes he has championed as a legislator and statewide candidate. Deeds will have a voice in that fight when he returns to the state Senate in January.

"We have challenges ahead," Deeds said. "Those challenges aren't disappearing just because we didn't get the result we wanted tonight. We've got some work ahead of us if we want to create opportunity, prosperity and hope in every corner of the commonwealth."

Deeds said the defeat "doesn't mean we get to go home and whine. We've got to keep working."

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

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. Democrats also lost the governor's race in New Jersey on Tuesday.

"We've got to give credit where credit is due," Kaine said at a somber Democratic gathering at a Henrico County hotel. "The other ticket ran a good campaign."

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 vowed to attack the state's transportation crisis without raising taxes 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 that raised questions about his attitudes on women's rights and gay rights. McDonnell wrote the thesis while pursuing master's 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 will test his ability to deliver on his campaign promises. 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.

A former state delegate from Virginia Beach, McDonnell thanked those who supported him and offered an olive branch to those who didn't.

"For those of you who did not support me, I say to you, give me a chance to earn your trust and work with you for the betterment of the commonwealth of Virginia," he said.

Deeds, 51, stunned political observers in June by trouncing two better-funded rivals in the Democratic primary. But after winning the nomination, he 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.

McDonnell also forced Deeds to walk a political tightrope on thorny national issues, including proposals to create a "cap and trade" system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to give workers greater ability to organize unions.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said McDonnell's pragmatic focus "translates well" with voters.

"He takes those principles, his conservative principles, and applies them in a 21st century way to the problems that people have," Steele told reporters Tuesday night at McDonnell's victory rally.

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, whose 2001 election started a Democratic revival in Virginia, said he hopes McDonnell will be the consensus-builder that he proclaimed himself to be as a candidate.

"I hope he will govern as he campaigned, someone who wants to find those bipartisan, practical solutions," Warner said.

mike.sluss@roanoke.com (804) 697-1585