By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds, the nominees in Tuesday’s election for Virginia governor, were opponents four years ago in a state attorney general’s election so close that Republican McDonnell wasn’t confirmed as the winner until four days before Christmas.

But McDonnell-Deeds II is looking like a blowout, not a nailbiter.

The momentum has shifted so strongly to McDonnell in the waning days of the campaign that CQ Politics is re-rating the Virginia governor’s race as “Likely Republican,” supplanting the “Leans Republican” rating that had anticipated a close race.

At least eight public surveys in the past two weeks have given McDonnell a lead of at least 10 percentage points over Deeds. The most recent poll, conducted of 569 likely voters Oct. 21-27 by the Center for Community Research at Roanoke College, found that McDonnell was preferred by 53 percent and Deeds by 36 percent.

That poll, like numerous other ones, shows McDonnell with a dominant advantage among self-described political independents (55 percent to 29 percent) and big leads over Deeds on who would better handle the economy, transportation and education issues. By a wide margin, voters think Deeds is running a more negative campaign than McDonnell.

“These results suggest that it will be very difficult for Deeds to win in Virginia,” Harry Wilson, the director of the Center for Community Research, said in an analysis that accompanied the poll findings.

“Deeds is facing a steep uphill battle in so far as he has a lot of ground to make up in one week, and the tide is not moving in his direction,” Wilson said. “McDonnell holds a significant lead among the key independent group. Deeds has to hope for a very large turnout among the core Democratic voters as well as the so-called ‘Obama voters.’”

Recent surveys indicate that the political composition of Tuesday’s electorate will be somewhat different than the political composition of the huge 2008 electorate that made Obama the first Democratic presidential candidate in 44 years to win Virginia. Though Obama defeated John McCain by more than 6 percentage points, there may be more McCain voters than Obama voters among the 2 million or so Virginians who are expected to vote next week. That’s a much smaller turnout than in 2008, when more than 3.7 million Virginians voted in the presidential election.

The surveys show that Republicans are more enthusiastic about the election than Democrats. And history is on the GOP’s side: in each of the eight elections for governor since 1977, the losing candidate has always belonged to the party that won the presidential election the year before.

To follow the 2009 and 2010 governors’ races, check out CQ Politics’ election map.