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Former Virginia governor candidate Creigh Deeds is fighting for his life after he was brutally stabbed by his own 24-year-old son, who then committed suicide - just one day after he was committed to a psychiatric ward. Deeds, a state senator, is in critical condition at University of Virginia hospital after he was found in his home in rural Bath County. Deeds was stabbed multiple times in the head and torso and lost large amounts of blood. The veteran Democratic state legislator's son Gus was found shot dead, as well. Gus had been evaluated by psychiatrists at a mental hospital...

Virginia state lawmaker and onetime candidate for governor Creigh Deeds suffered serious injuries in a stabbing attack that took place in his home Tuesday, police said.

MIILLBORO, Va. (WRIC)—Former gubernatorial candidate and Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds is in critical condition after being stabbed in his home Tuesday morning. At 7:25 a.m. on Nov. 19, Virginia State Police responded to Deeds' home in Bath County, where Deeds had been stabbed. The senator's son, Gus, was found fatally shot at the scene. Deeds was flown to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition. The Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Salem Field Office is conducting an investigation into the assault. 8News crews are headed to both Deeds' Millboro home and the...

Former Dem nominee for VA-Gov in serious condition. Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, is in critical condition after being stabbed in his home and his son Gus is dead from a gunshot wound, law enforcement sources told the Richmond Times-Dispatch this morning. Deeds is being treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Authorities said they are trying to determine the sequence of events at the Deeds home in Bath County early today. Further details were not immediately available.

Tuesday, Bob McDonnell was elected to serve as the 71st Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, defeating state Sen. Creigh Deeds by a margin of 59 – 41 percent. By comparison, President Barack Obama received 53 percent of the vote for in 2008. Sen. Deeds had made clear during the campaign his willingness to raise taxes. On September 23, in a Washington Post Op-Ed entitled “My Transportation Plan”, Deeds said, “As a legislator, I have voted for a number of mechanisms to fund transportation, including a gas tax. And I’ll sign a bipartisan bill with a dedicated funding mechanism for...

Fox News just called the Virginia gubernatorial race for Republican Bob McDonnell. Exit polls show him defeating Democrat Creigh Deeds in a landslide. Republicans also have captured the Lt. Governor and Attorney General spots, making it a clean sweep.

An early voting report from Virginia's 1st Congressional District, epicenter for today's expected GOP tsunami in the Old Dominion. I reside in York County, not far from Fort Eustis and the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center. The district is heavily Republican; John McCain got more than 60% of the vote here last year. Polls open in Virginia at 6 a.m. I arrived at my voting place (a local elementary school) at 6:45. The parking lot was 80% full at that hour, and more cars were arriving by the minute. The level activity seemed comparable to what I saw during the...

Bob McDonnell leads Creigh Deeds 56-42 in PPP's final poll of the race. In a finding that may sum up what happened here 63% of voters in the state think McDonnell made a strong case for why he should be Governor while only 34% said the same of Deeds. Even 36% of Deeds' supporters said he hadn't made a good argument for why he should be elected. Beyond that the same themes that have shown throughout the general election show up in the last survey. 61% of McDonnell's voters are 'very excited' to vote on Tuesday while just 14% are...

R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, seems poised to lose the jewel in President Obama's political crown. In November 2008, Obama was the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to win the electoral votes of the Commonwealth. Obama's victory was a case study in how he might transform American politics, building an alliance of new voters and suburban Southerners to defeat Republicans at the heart of their power. A year later, the Virginia governor's race displays a Democratic promise gone crusty and stale. The Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell, threatens to turn a lead into a rout. Democratic leaders,...

Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign stop for New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009, in Collingswood, N.J New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine, left, listens as former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign event in West Orange, N.J., Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009. Corzine will face Republican candidate Chris Christie and Independent Chris Daggett in next week's election. Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Virginia State Sen. Creigh Deeds, left, raises his fist to the crowd during a campaign stop with former President Bill Clinton, in McLean, Va. on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009.

I could just as easily have titled this "Why Bob McDonnell is winning." Let's start with the candidate. As Virginia uber-blogger Not Larry Sabato points out, a governor is a manager. Voters intuitively understand this, and so they look to the candidate who seems to be the best manager. Creigh Deeds doesn't come off as a confident, crisp, efficient manager; Bob McDonnell does. The dynamics of an open seat, with a much narrower pool of voters, a re-energized Republican Party -- these conditions were expected, and they were satisfied. Deeds's climb would be uphill. Also: Virginians fell in love with...

In the final days of the gubernatorial campaign, a new poll shows Bob McDonnell with an 18 point margin over his Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds, according to a statewide survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University. The poll finds 54 perfect of likely voters support or lean to McDonnell, 36 percent support or lean to Deeds. A 56 percent majority of independents are siding with or leaning to McDonnell, 29 percent of independents are siding with or leaning to Deeds. The poll also indicates both candidates do well with rank-and-file members of their respective political parties. Even though some observers have...

President Obama exhorted Virginia Democrats Tuesday to get behind their underdog gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds, urging them to shake off the complacency that has plagued the party this year. (snip) After winning consecutive governor’s race, seizing the state’s two Senate seats and ending a 44-year streak of supporting Republican presidential candidates to help elect the nation’s first African-American president, many Virginia Democrats have greeted this year’s election with a collective yawn. Polls show a chasm between the enthusiasm of Republicans for McDonnell, a former attorney general, and Democrats for state Sen. Deeds – a disparity perhaps best illustrated by the...

With only a week to go before we vote in Virginia’s odd-year election, the outcome looks good for the Republican statewide slate. The Democrats, optimistic a month ago, have taken to blaming their candidate, Creigh Deeds, for the loss to come — although Deeds has run exactly the race the national Democrats wanted him to run, trying to use a "wedge" issue to mislead voters.

A SurveyUSA poll conducted Oct. 25-26 of Virginia voters puts Republican Bob McDonnell up by 17 percentage points in next Tuesday's election for governor -- the fifth public poll in the past week that gives him a commanding, double-digit lead over Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds. The SurveyUSA poll, which canvassed 502 voters who say they are likely to cast a ballot on Nov. 3, puts McDonnell up by 58 percent to 41 percent. McDonnell has a strong lead among political independents, 60 percent to 38 percent. McDonnell is peeling away parts of the voter coalition that has boosted recent Democratic...

Memo to the White House political smart guys: It’s not that the body isn’t cold yet; it’s that the body is not even dead yet. There will be plenty of time after the election for you to explain that Creigh Deeds’s loss in Virginia had nothing to do with the president’s 25-point drop in job approval. It had nothing to do with the fact that a majority of Americans in every survey disapprove of the policies the president is advocating. Nothing to do with the 4.2 million jobs lost since Inauguration Day. Nothing to do with the 36 percent rise...

Bill Clinton, accustomed to speaking to cheering thousands at a hundred grand a pop, was dispatched the other night to a Deeds rally to set the throng on fire with one of his late-October stumpwallopers. The rally, such as it was, was held not at an arena or a hotel - not even a Motel 6 - but in a campaign office in the Washington suburbs. The "throng" was counted in the dozens, about the size of a PTA meeting. Not even Bubba could dispel the gloom of a wake.

It is surely one of the most unusual pitches in this year's gubernatorial elections -- a Tony Soprano-like figure defending New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent efforts to close the gun show loophole and warning Virginians not to get too attached to their Second Amendment freedoms "if ya know what's good for ya." Bloomberg underwrote a commercial in April that attacked former Virginia Atty. Gen. Bob McDonnell for his pro-gun positions and pushed for the closure of the state's "gun show loophole." Now Bloomberg is running for re-election, McDonnell is running for governor and the nation's larger gun lobby --...

With one week to go before voters in Virginia head to the polls, Republican Robert McDonnell has a double-digit lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds according to a new Washington Post poll. Here are selected crosstabs from the new poll of 1,206 likely voters. Q. If the election were being held today and the candidates were Creigh Deeds, the Democrat and Bob McDonnell, the Republican, for whom would you vote? Deeds McDonnell All likely voters 44% 55% More results and question wording from the poll can be found here. Men 39 59 Women 48 50 White 34 64 African American 89...