Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia Gubernatorial election on November 4, with her victory being called almost immediately after the polls closed. Spanberger’s victory delivered a potent repudiation of President Trump’s policies after a campaign laser-focused on attacking them. The former CIA officer and three-term Congresswoman, who entered politics in the 2018 Democratic wave, defeated her Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, in a race that drew national attention as an early test of voter sentiment toward the Trump administration. At 46, Spanberger will be Virginia’s first female governor, following a streak of 65 men who have served in that office since Virginia became part of the US in 1788. Spanberger replaces popular outgoing Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who won in 2021 with 50.6% of the vote to Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s 48.7% but cannot seek consecutive re-election.
Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, a pragmatic centrist who has bucked her party on occasion, voting against Nancy Pelosi for House speaker in 2019 and criticizing President Joe Biden as too progressive in 2021, cultivated a maverick image that helped her outrun a battered Democratic brand. Spanberger’s theme of “affordability” addressed rising costs for housing, utilities, pharmaceuticals and economic uncertainty from Trump’s tariffs and federal layoffs, while she harnessed anger over cuts to the federal workforce that disproportionately hit Virginia, home to around 320,000 federal workers and hundreds of thousands of contractors. On the campaign trail, she argued that federal layoffs, cutbacks by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tariffs and the federal shutdown amounted to an attack on the state’s economy, pitching herself as a way for voters to push back. “We need a governor who will recognize the hardship of this moment, advocate for Virginians, and make clear that not only are we watching people be challenged in their livelihoods and in their businesses and in communities, but Virginia’s economy is under attack,” she said during a late-October bus tour stop. Backed by national Democrats eyeing a 2026 midterm boost, including a campaign appearance by former President Barack Obama and heavy DNC spending, Spanberger raised nearly twice as much money as Winsome Earle-Sears, held double-digit leads in final polls and ran a surgical effort that scared off primary rivals, resisting calls for new ideas in favor of her 2018 playbook of Trump opposition.
At her jubilant election night watch party, where House Speaker Don Scott shouted, “Y’all ready to witness history tonight?“, Abgail Spanberger struck a bipartisan tone in her victory speech, praising Winsome Earle-Sears and pledging to serve all Virginians in a departure from President Donald Trump’s with-me-or-against-me ethos. She touched on the milestone for their three daughters, recounting her husband’s words: “Your mom is going to be the governor of Virginia—I can guarantee you that those words have never been spoken before.” She took one swipe at the administration, declaring, “Virginia’s economy doesn’t work when Washington treats our Virginia workers as expendable. And to those across the Potomac who are attacking our jobs and our economy, I will not stand by silently.” As Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan put it, “Virginians, they see the impacts of what’s happening in Washington in real time and are looking for state leaders who are going to fill in those gaps and address that harm.”
Winsome Earle-Sears, a Jamaican immigrant who became a US Marine and small business owner, portrayed herself as the American dream incarnate and pledged allegiance to President Donald Trump despite his meager late endorsement and minimal help for her cash-strapped campaign. She vowed to extend Glenn Youngkin’s business-friendly policies, accused Abigail Spanberger of supporting Biden-era moves and attacked her on transgender rights, claiming they threatened girls’ safety in school bathrooms and locker rooms. “Love is not having my daughter having to be forced to undress in a locker room with a man. That’s not love,” she said at an October rally. “Love is making sure that our girl children have opportunities in sports and are not forced to play against biological males.”
The race was jolted in its final weeks by the government shutdown, which both sides blamed on the other and shadowed early voting; a Democratic push to redistrict congressional maps for 2026 midterms favoring their candidates amid Trump’s similar efforts elsewhere; and a scandal over text messages from Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who hypothetically described shooting a Republican lawmaker. Spanberger denounced the messages, but Earle-Sears faulted her for not demanding Jones drop out. Glenn Youngkin prioritized re-electing Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares over bolstering Winsome Earle-Sears, donating only a fraction of his 2023 General Assembly spending to her effort. Despite the uproar, Jones defeated Miyares in the key post, enabling Virginia to join blue-state lawsuits against Trump. Separately, Democrat Ghazala Hashmi won the lieutenant governor race, becoming the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office in America after a low-profile campaign with few appearances and no debate against Republican talk-show host John Reid, though she trailed Spanberger amid her party’s uneven performance elsewhere.
