Democrat Abigail Spanberger will be the next governor of Virginia, according to an Associated Press tally.
Spanberger, who served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, defeated her Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears. She will be the first woman governor of Virginia.
The race drew national attention as one of the first major tests of voter sentiment in response to the Trump administration’s policies.
Virginia is home to about 320,000 federal employees and hundreds of thousands of federal contractors. In the campaign, Spanberger argued that federal layoffs, cuts from President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tariffs, and the federal government shutdown represented an attack on Virginia’s economy — and positioned herself as a way for voters to push back.
“We need a governor who recognizes the difficulty of this moment, stands up for Virginians, and makes it clear that not only are we seeing people challenged in their livelihoods, their businesses, and their communities, but Virginia’s economy is under attack,” Spanberger said during a campaign bus tour stop late last month.
That message resonated with Haley Morgan Wright, a voter whose husband is a federal employee currently working without pay during the federal government shutdown. She wants Spanberger to use her platform as governor to highlight stories of public servants like him.
“He cares about his country, wants to serve his country, and chose to do so in this way,” she said after voting in the northern Virginia suburbs. “He’s not superfluous.”
Spanberger received support from national Democrats
National Democrats were counting on Spanberger and Virginia Democrats for a boost toward the 2026 midterm elections. Former President Barack Obama campaigned for her, and the party backed her in one of only two gubernatorial elections this year.
“The DNC has invested a lot of money and a lot of time in Virginia,” said DNC Vice Chair Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta at a party volunteer meeting in northern Virginia. “Because we know that what you do and the momentum that will come from your victories will help us flip the House of Representatives in 2026.”
In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe with 50.6% of the vote to 48.7%. Virginia governors serve a single four-year term.
Spanberger, who served in the CIA before running for Congress in 2018, cultivated a reputation as a pragmatic centrist. The theme of her gubernatorial campaign was “affordability” — speaking to Virginians’ concerns about rising housing costs, utility bills, prescription drugs, and the economic uncertainty she attributed to Trump’s tariffs and federal layoffs.
Earle-Sears, meanwhile, presented herself as an example of the American dream — a Jamaican immigrant who became a U.S. Marine and small business owner.
She accused Spanberger of supporting transgender rights policies that she said posed a threat to girls’ safety in school bathrooms and locker rooms.
“Love is not forcing my daughter to undress in a locker room with a man. That’s not love,” Earle-Sears said at a late October rally. “Love is ensuring our girls have opportunities in sports and are not forced to compete against biological males.”
Earle-Sears’s stance on transgender students in girls’ bathrooms resonated with Elizabeth Drake, a voter who said she works with youth at a church in Loudoun County.
“I feel like we’re really going backward and hurting ourselves by putting women in danger,” she said. “I’m not saying that means we can’t have alternative spaces for people, but women’s locker rooms, women’s bathrooms, and safe spaces for women are not the place.”
The race was rocked by last-minute events
Earle-Sears also attacked Spanberger for supporting Biden administration policies. She promised to continue outgoing Gov. Youngkin’s pro-business policies. Although she supported Trump’s policies, Trump did not endorse her.
Several events impacted the race’s final weeks. The federal government shutdown overshadowed the last month of early voting, with both campaigns blaming the other party for the impasse.
Virginia legislators began considering a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts in favor of Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterms, while Trump pressures Republicans in other states to do the same for his candidates. This could be a problem for Virginia’s next governor.
And Republicans capitalized on revelations of text messages from Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, in which he hypothetically described a shooting against a Republican legislator. Spanberger repudiated the messages, though Earle-Sears criticized her for not calling on Jones to drop out of the race.
Despite the scandal, Jones defeated incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, according to an Associated Press tally. His victory in the state’s top legal office will allow Virginia to join the flood of lawsuits from blue states against the Trump administration.
Source: npr.org by Margaret Barthel