Many observers felt the nomination of Cuccinelli — a conservative who has been serving as a surrogate for the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas — was a head fake designed to make other candidates for the court seem more palatable.

House Minority Leader David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, said the short-lived push for Cuccinelli was not a serious effort.

“That was a total side show designed to try to flip a couple Democrats,” Toscano said.

After failing to elect their first pick, Court of Appeals Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr., Republicans pitched McCullough as a reasonable solution to an impasse neither side was happy with.

That argument seemed to hold sway with freshman Sen. Glen H. Sturtevant Jr., R-Richmond, who broke with his party to support Roush and oppose Alston, effectively blocking the Republican plan in the narrowly divided Senate.

In an interview, Sturtevant reiterated that he felt Roush should stay on the bench and that he could not vote for Alston because “he had become a political pawn in this ongoing saga” between the governor and the legislature.