RICHMOND -- Not much excitement here yet at Bob McDonnell's election night headquarters, downtown in a large hotel ballroom. The Creigh Deeds campaign has set up camp on the outskirts of Richmond -- perhaps analagous to where the candidate will find himself when the polls close at 7 p.m., on the outside looking in.

Hoping for positive, midday media reports, the Deeds campaign released a statement just before 1 p.m. (while this reporter was driving down from D.C.) stating that turnout was looking good in essential counties for statewide Democratic candidates.

"We are seeing encouraging numbers in key parts of the state. Northern and Central Virginia in particular look strong," said Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey. "The Charlottesville area, which includes areas represented by Creigh Deeds in the state Senate is particularly strong and 10 percent of voters in key Democratic precincts had already voted by 10 AM. Meanwhile, voters in the populous and Democratic precincts of Alexandria and Arlington have been voting at rates well above the average in other parts of the Commonwealth."

Deeds currently trails by 13.4 points in the polls and recent fundraising data shows he's way behind in large donations received over the last two weeks of the campaign.

McDonnell, according to reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project, accepted nearly $1.5 million in $5,000+ donations since the last campaign finance filing deadline on Oct. 21. That's three times what Deeds took in, and Deeds started the last two weeks far less dough than McDonnell.

It was evident in Northern Virginia, where McDonnell blanketed the airwaves with ads showing him to be a pragmatic problem solver in Richmond and a candidate for governor -- though it wasn't clear which party he was part of.