Bill Bolling re-elected Lieutenant Governor

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.

“This is the dawn of a new day in Virginia,” Bolling said last night. “I promise you this, we are going to change the direction of the commonwealth of Virginia.”

Bolling, a former state senator, had contemplated running for governor this year. He agreed 18 months ago to run for re-election as lieutenant governor in deference to Bob McDonnell, the former Virginia attorney general who last night was elected governor.

With a salary of $36,321 a year, the lieutenant governor has only two constitutionally mandated duties — to preside over the state Senate and cast tie-breaking votes; and to succeed a governor who resigns or dies in office.

Under Kaine, a Democrat, Bolling was kept away from the inner workings of the executive branch. Now, with a fellow Republican in the Executive Mansion, Bolling is expected to assume a greater role in shaping policy in the administration.

Bolling’s re-election also puts him first in line for the Republican nomination to succeed McDonnell in 2014, when McDonnell’s term expires. Since 1971, every Virginia lieutenant governor has run for governor; four have won, including Kaine.

Last night’s vote brings an end to a contentious down-ticket battle.

Wagner, a corporate lawyer before she entered state politics and serving under Kaine and then-Gov. Mark R. Warner, had accused Bolling of being an absentee public servant. She charged that he missed 94 percent of the meetings to the boards and commissions on which he had been invited to serve.

Bolling, who disputed that figure, had countered that Wagner, as Kaine’s top financial adviser, had botched projections of state revenues that dug the commonwealth into a deeper fiscal hole.

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or .
Staff writer Olympia Meola contributed to this report.