Democrat Abigail Spanberger Wins Virginia Governor’s Election

Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger is projected to become the first female governor of Virginia after posting a convincing election win on Tuesday.

The race was called by the Associated Press early in the night, with just over 30% of the votes counted. Spanberger bested her opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by what was expected to be a wide margin.

In a victory speech, Spanberger said the state “chose pragmatism over partisanship” and “our Commonwealth over chaos.”

She also called out President Donald Trump — without mentioning his name explicitly.

“The chaos coming out of Washington is killing Virginia jobs and creating economic uncertainty for the tens of thousands of families,” Spanberger said. “To those across the Potomac who are attacking our jobs and our economy I will not stand by silently while you attack Virginia’s workers.”

“As governor-elect I call on Congress, Republicans and Democrats and our President to make real progress on bringing this shutdown to an end,” Spanberger added to roars from the crowd.

She led in the polls consistently throughout her campaign, centering her messaging toward federal employees impacted by President Donald Trump’s purge of the federal government — a kitchen-table issue in Virginia, where a major portion of the federal workforce lives.

The message appears to have resonated.

“I’m actually not surprised,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said on CNN about Spanberger’s victory. “How long could you hold on to a state like Virginia, particularly when you have so many government workers in that area.”

Spanberger is projected to win alongside her running mate Ghazala Hashmi, who will be the first Muslim woman to win a statewide race in U.S. history. The state senator ran a low-profile campaign focused on health and education, beating Republican candidate John Reid by a similar margin to Spanberger’s victory.

Republican gubernatorial candidate and current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears speaks during a news conference on the steps of the Virginia Capitol Building. Mike Kropf/AP

The race for Virginia attorney general, between Republican incumbent Jason Miyares and Democrat Jay Jones, was too early to call.

Jones ran a relatively quiet campaign focused on public safety before it was engulfed in scandal when screenshots surfaced in early October of the Democratic candidate allegedly fantasizing over text about shooting Virginia’s then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children in 2022.

Virginia has historically been considered the testing ground for political messaging after a presidential race, and over the last few cycles its voters have elected a governor from the opposing party to the White House. The last time a member of the sitting president’s party won Virginia’s governor’s seat was in 2013, when Democrat Terry McAuliffe was elected following Barack Obama’s reelection.

In her campaign to win Virginia Republican voters, Earle-Sears framed Trump’s purge of federal employees as an opportunity for Virginia businesses and used her public appearances to focus on transgender-related policy issues.

Reid, the state’s first openly gay nominee, was the center of a scandal during the campaign after reports found him tied to a Tumblr account that shared sexually explicit content fetishizing Nazism and white supremacy.

After launching her campaign in November 2023, Spanberger raised more than $55 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, and ended her campaign with about $4 million in cash on hand. By comparison, Earle-Sears, who started her campaign in September 2024, raised nearly $35 million and ended it with about $1.3 million in cash on hand.

Spanberger is walking immediately into a tense redistricting battle after Virginia Democrats passed a constitutional amendment last week granting the state Legislature the authority to redraw congressional districts before the 2026 midterms.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has sought to block the redistricting process in court, issuing an opinion arguing that Democrats are overstepping the state constitution by reclaiming power from the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission. An Oct. 29 contribution filing by Miyares’ campaign reported a $250,000 contribution from Trump-aligned billionaire Ken Griffin on the same day he issued the opinion opposing redistricting.

State-level House and Senate Republicans attempted a lawsuit to block the redistricting effort, but a judge ultimately denied the request for an emergency injunction.

On the campaign trail, Spanberger didn’t oppose Democrats’ redistricting plan — but did not explicitly endorse it either.

“What they are doing at this moment is keeping alive the option of taking action into the future,” Spanberger said, eight days out from the election. “While I like to plan for everything, on this one, because I’m on the bus tour … I will let the General Assembly take this step, and then we’ll talk calendar issues later.”