Democrat Abigail Spanberger (left) and Republican Winsome Earle-Sears are the candidates for governor of Virginia.
Win McNamee by way of Getty Photographs/The Washington Put up by way of Getty Photographs
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Win McNamee by way of Getty Photographs/The Washington Put up by way of Getty Photographs
It is main election day in Virginia, and the state is gearing up for a giant election 12 months. In November, Virginians will vote for governor, lieutenant governor, lawyer basic, and all 100 seats within the decrease home of the legislature. Political watchers will eye the campaigns for clues about how voters within the purple-ish state are feeling in regards to the Trump administration forward of the 2026 midterms.
The foremost-party candidates within the race for governor are already set; neither confronted a severe main problem. The race pits Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who beforehand represented Virginia’s seventh Congressional District on Capitol Hill, in opposition to Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the present lieutenant governor.
The political panorama Spanberger and Earle-Sears will negotiate between now and November doubtless favors Democrats, however nonetheless provides alternatives for Republicans. Virginia shifted proper in 2024, however Kamala Harris nonetheless received it by six factors. That lean to the proper was fueled largely by Trump’s features within the suburbs outdoors of D.C. — an space of the state that now stands to be significantly affected by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal authorities. Whether or not Earle-Sears can consolidate these suburban inroads — or whether or not Spanberger can capitalize on anger over the Trump administration’s antagonistic method to the federal workforce — might very properly resolve the race.
Both approach, Virginia will make historical past in November: the commonwealth’s seventy fifth governor would be the first girl to serve within the position.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger greets voters on Election Day 2022 in Prince William County, Virginia.
Margaret Barthel
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Margaret Barthel
‘A plan for what comes subsequent’
Spanberger, 45, obtained her begin in politics as a volunteer along with her native Mothers Demand Motion chapter — and in April, the nationwide gun security group endorsed her in an occasion in Alexandria, Virginia, proper throughout the Potomac River from D.C.
“I vividly keep in mind my first Mothers Demand Motion assembly. It was in a library in Henrico County, and I walked in tremendous nervous,” she recalled to cheers from the gang of about 100 volunteers in brilliant pink t-shirts in a local people corridor.
If elected, Spanberger tells the gang, she’ll signal payments banning high-capacity magazines and ghost weapons and stopping folks with home violence convictions from buying firearms — all laws handed in recent times by a Democratic majority within the Virginia Basic Meeting however vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican. She has additionally supported banning assault-style weapons.
These guarantees are hardly surprising for a Democratic politician. What’s distinctive is the framing Spanberger provides for them: her expertise carrying weapons herself as a federal agent and former CIA officer. Gun restrictions, she argues, are pro-law enforcement.
“If we’re severe about stopping violent criminals, we should stop them from manufacturing and distributing unlawful, untraceable firearms,” she mentioned.
Two native sheriffs are endorsing her candidacy.
That is all traditional Spanberger, who’s lengthy cultivated a repute as a reasonable coverage wonk centered on points like fentanyl overdoses, veterans, and agriculture. Whereas she often toed the Democratic celebration line in Congress, she additionally picked her share of moments to disagree with celebration management, publicly criticizing the Biden administration’s authentic sweeping ambitions for the Construct Again Higher Act and refusing to vote for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019.
Spanberger received her swing seat in Congress in 2018, and held it by two extra elections dominated by the presence of Donald Trump.
Now, the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce are particularly private to the greater than 300,000 federal staff residing in Virginia, in addition to the non-public Virginia companies that pull in essentially the most federal contracting {dollars} within the nation.
The total impression of federal cuts on the Commonwealth is nonetheless unclear, with some authorities staff in limbo as lawsuits and company reorganizations go ahead. State income remained regular by April, in accordance with the newest figures from the Youngkin administration.
However along with opposition to Trump, Spanberger can be counting on her expertise as a bipartisan lawmaker to get her over the end line. Her marketing campaign has been rolling out affordability-focused insurance policies on housing, vitality, and prescription drug prices.
“I am standing up for Virginians in opposition to insurance policies which might be harmful and dangerous for them, but in addition placing out a plan for what comes subsequent, or, in worst-case situations, how we are able to mitigate essentially the most damaging of impacts coming from the Trump administration,” Spanberger mentioned in an interview with NPR at an occasion centered on her vitality plan. “So it is not an either-or.”
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears takes press questions at a June 2025 occasion with Republican Nationwide Committee chairman Michael Whatley.
Margaret Barthel
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Margaret Barthel
‘Freedom means you preserving cash in your pocket’
Not everybody buys Spanberger’s fastidiously crafted centrist picture — most notably, her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. On the marketing campaign path, she criticizes Spanberger for voting for the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, which made it simpler to sue cops for misconduct, and in opposition to the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of immigrants with out authorized standing who’re arrested for housebreaking, theft, and shoplifting.
“My opponent voted to have legal, unlawful aliens stay on this nation. Why would she do this? We’re speaking about among the most heinous crimes, rapists, pedophiles, murderers to remain in Virginia, in America”, Earle-Sears advised NPR at a marketing campaign occasion.
Along with her efforts to reframe Spanberger, Earle-Sears, 61, can be making an attempt to outline herself: as an immigrant from Jamaica who’s labored exhausting for her personal slice of the American dream, serving within the Marines and proudly owning her personal plumbing and electrical enterprise (which is now inactive, in accordance with Virginia enterprise data). Earle-Sears, the primary Black girl elected to statewide workplace in Virginia, might turn into the nation’s first Black feminine governor.
Earle-Sears is working because the pure successor of her boss, present Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whose emphasis on enterprise improvement and decrease taxes has saved his approval rankings excessive in a state the place voters have roundly rejected Donald Trump thrice. (Virginia regulation solely permits governors one time period at a time.)
“You would possibly know that as we discuss freedom, properly, freedom additionally means you preserving as a lot cash that you just make in your individual pocket,” Earle-Sears advised a gaggle of volunteers, at her headquarters in northern Virginia for a June election integrity coaching sponsored by the Republican Nationwide Committee.
To cheers, she advised the group she’d eliminate the native automobile tax, a much-hated annual private property tax levied by native jurisdictions in Virginia. That, too, can be an extension of Youngkin’s time period. Earlier this 12 months, Youngkin proposed a three-year rebate program for the tax, however Democrats within the Basic Meeting blocked it, citing issues over the potential impression of the Trump administration on Virginia as a cause the state should not commit the funds.
However Earle-Sears contends the commonwealth has the cash and may use it. (Spanberger has mentioned she’d prefer to work with the legislature to discover a strategy to finish the tax, however has not claimed the state at present has the funds to take action.)
Earle-Sears says she’s not anxious in regards to the impression federal cuts might have on the Virginia financial system, which she believes is robust after 4 years of Republican management.
She empathizes with individuals who’ve misplaced a job. “I do know what it feels prefer to lose a job,” she mentioned, however believes Virginia has sufficient social assist to assist folks between jobs, pointing to incapacity insurance coverage, medical health insurance, and an unemployment insurance coverage fund refilled after the pandemic. And he or she is unequivocal in her assist for the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn method to the federal authorities.
“So there was waste, there’s been fraud, and there is been abuse, and the American folks, even Democrats, I am listening to from them, have mentioned, ‘Our cash has been going to what? To assist what terrorist organizations? To assist transgenders in different nations? Is that what we would like our cash for?'” she mentioned.
Democrats have attacked Earle-Sears for minimizing the implications of federal cuts, and so they’ve additionally eagerly seized on her culturally conservative stances on abortion rights — in the final state within the South to not impose restrictions on the process — and marriage equality as proof she’s out-of-step with Virginia voters.
Earle-Sears is in opposition to abortion rights, and in the course of the 2021 marketing campaign mentioned she’d assist a ban on the process at six weeks, although since then she’s aligned herself with Youngkin’s push for a 15-week restriction. Earlier this 12 months, as a part of her duties because the president of the state senate, Earle-Sears was required to signal a invoice starting the method of including a reproductive rights modification to the state structure — and she or he did, however scrawled “I’m morally against this invoice; no safety for the kid” alongside her signature, in accordance with reporting from The Virginia Mercury.
She was additionally required to signal a 2024 invoice prohibiting discrimination on the idea of race, intercourse, and gender in awarding marriage licenses, and once more wrote that she was “morally opposed” to the laws alongside along with her signature, in accordance with reporting by Virginia Scope.
The race ‘leans Democratic,’ for now
As of now, some political analysts suppose Spanberger has the sting, partly due to Virginia’s decades-long historical past of choosing governors from the other celebration of the one within the White Home. After which there’s the Trump impact.
“Extra lately, Trump appeared handy Spanberger a marketing campaign problem on a silver platter,” wrote J. Miles Coleman, an affiliate editor and political analyst on the College of Virginia’s Heart for Politics. “Virginia has one of many nation’s highest concentrations of federal employees, a gaggle that, to place it charitably, the Trump administration has gone out of its approach to antagonize.”
Coleman’s April evaluation put the race as “Leans Democratic,” which concurs with early impartial polling from Roanoke Faculty, Christopher Newport College, and Virginia Commonwealth College.
The Spanberger marketing campaign additionally has a two-to-one fundraising benefit, with practically $23 million raised in comparison with Earle-Sears’ $9.2 million.
However latest evaluation from Founders Perception, a Republican-affiliated analysis agency, noticed alternatives for Earle-Sears and the remainder of the Republican ticket, significantly in messaging on financial points.
“Most political observers privately suppose Virginia will probably be blue endlessly after 2025. However not so quick, the Commonwealth’s political fundamentals seem extra fluid than typical knowledge advised,” the group wrote of its findings, which confirmed a statistical tie between Spanberger and Earle-Sears. “Financial anxieties are reshaping voter priorities in ways in which may gain advantage Republicans, whereas excessive undecided charges point out an unusually unsettled citizens heading into the final election.”
A Spanberger win would possibly assist nationwide Democrats recapture momentum after their 2024 losses and redefine their celebration id past opposition to Trump, Coleman mentioned. Flipping the Virginia governor’s mansion can be “a concrete win that they might level to” forward of the 2026 midterms.
An Earle-Sears win, in the meantime, might give Republicans their very own midterms playbook.
