RICHMOND, Virginia — Abigail Spanberger won the race for governor of Virginia, flipping the governorship to Democratic control and becoming the first woman in the job in the commonwealth’s history.
Throughout her campaign, Spanberger zeroed in on affordability and lowering costs for Virginians amid the longest government shutdown in U.S. history as well as President Donald Trump’s attempts to remake the federal government. More than 1,000 Spanberger supporters gathered in Richmond for the campaign’s election night party, and the crowd erupted into cheers when a MSNBC livestream projected her the winner.
Spanberger, who was elected to the House in 2018 as part of a Democratic wave fueled by backlash to Trump, also capitalized on outrage over the administration among the Democratic base.
Her victory gives Democrats a boost ahead of the midterms — and reinforces the belief among some within the party that the strategy to regaining power consists of running moderate Democrats like her who are narrowly focused on economic issues.
Spanberger worked as a CIA officer before being elected to Congress, where she had a bipartisan voting record and criticized fellow Democrats over progressive positions like defunding the police. She earned the endorsement of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association, a group that hasn’t backed a Democrat for governor in over a decade, along with well-known Republicans, like former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock.
“This election matters to more than just Virginia,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, in an interview. “It matters to this country, because I think it’s one of the first opportunities for us to really make a statement about [whether] people agree with the direction that the Trump administration has taken this country.”
Spanberger dominated fundraising and polling throughout the entire race. Her opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, argued that Republican control must continue to maintain the successes of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration. Youngkin was barred by law from seeking a consecutive second term.
In the final stretch of the campaign, Earle-Sears made trans issues a centerpiece of her messaging and characterized Spanberger as being for “they/them,” echoing Trump’s political advertising in the 2024 election. Earle-Sears hammered Spangberger for not having a clear answer on whether transgender students can use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
But those attacks failed to gain traction among voters, who consistently named the rising cost of living and the economy as their top concerns, and strategists from both parties questioned whether that approach would be enough to peel off independents.
Trump never endorsed by name Earle-Sears, who once criticized his decision to run for reelection. Republicans, pessimistic about her campaign from its start, were more focused on getting Attorney General Jason Miyares reelected. Miyares was up against Democrat Jay Jones, who was embroiled in a late-in-the-game texting scandal where he wished violence on his political rivals.
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