The Republican Party won big last week in Virginia.

In Goochland, they won even bigger, with all four GOP candidates winning every county precinct.

In each of the three top contests, Goochland went for the GOP victor by 10 to 12 percentage points more than the statewide margin.

Governor-elect Bob McDonnell won the state vote 59 to 41 percent. In Goochland, he got almost 71 percent of the ballots cast.

Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli polled similar margins in Goochland, besting their statewide percentages by 11 and 13 percentage points respectively.

In the race for the 56th District House of Delegates seat, incumbent Republican Bill Janis retained his seat with a convincing win over Democratic challenger James Towey. Janis polled more than 72 percent of votes cast in the race.

The big difference in this election, according to Goochland County Registrar Frances Ragland, was turnout, which, at just under 55 percent, was about 30 percent lower than last fall’s number in the presidential election, the highest for any locality in the state in the fall election at 85 percent.

“It was a big difference,” said Ragland. “A lot of folks only vote in presidential elections,” she observed.

Ragland said the electronic poll books worked fine and said there were no delays. “I’m tickled to death at the lack of problems,” she said.

“We’re kind of getting a reputation as a county that votes,” said Goochland Republican Party Chairman Ben Sloane, who noted that Goochland had one of highest unofficial turnouts in the state last week. In last fall’s election, the county had the state’s highest turnout.

“We would have liked it to be a more competitive race,” said Goochland Democratic Party Chairman Alan Tucker, who also noted the good turnout in the county.

“Our goal is to be more competitive in Goochland. It looks like we have some more work to do,” he conceded.

On the House of Delegates race, Sloane said although the Democrats ran a good candidate in Towey, Janis had more name recognition and a strong conservative record.

“People are happy with his representation,” said Sloane. “It shows their satisfaction with Bill Janis.”

Despite Janis’s convincing victory over him, Towey said he would not rule out running for public office again.

“It was certainly an uphill battle from the beginning,” said Towey, who said it was important to turn back the “party first” mindset. Towey said he had voters tell him they would have voted for him except they wanted to “send a message to Washington” that they didn’t like what was going on there.

Janis said the election numbers spoke for themselves.

“After eight years of serving the citizens of Goochland, Henrico and Louisa the vote tally indicates that they know they can count on me to represent their interests in Virginia,” said Janis. “I’m grateful they have chosen me to go back and serve them for another two years.”