Democrat Spanberger wins Virginia governor race with message on DOGE, cost of living

Democrat Abigail Spanberger can be Virginia’s subsequent governor, in line with a race name by the Related Press.

Spanberger, who beforehand served three phrases within the U.S. Home, defeated her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. She’ll be Virginia’s first girl governor.

The competition obtained nationwide consideration as one of many first main exams of voter sentiment in response to the Trump administration’s insurance policies.

Virginia is house to round 320,000 federal employees and a whole bunch of hundreds of federal contractors. On the marketing campaign path, Spanberger argued that federal layoffs, cutbacks by President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), tariffs, and the federal shutdown have been an assault on the Virginia economic system — and pitched herself as a approach for voters to push again.

“We’d like a governor who will acknowledge the hardship of this second, advocate for Virginians, and clarify that not solely are we watching folks be challenged of their livelihoods and of their companies and in communities, however Virginia’s economic system is below assault,” Spanberger mentioned at a cease on a marketing campaign bus tour late final month.

That message resonated with Haley Morgan Wright, a voter whose husband is a federal worker presently working with out pay in the course of the federal shutdown. She needs Spanberger to make use of her platform as governor to uplift the tales of civil servants like him.

“He cares about his nation, he needs to serve his nation and has opted to do it on this approach,” she mentioned after casting a poll within the Northern Virginia exurbs. “He is not superfluous.”

Spanberger was backed by nationwide Democrats

Nationwide Democrats had seemed to Spanberger and Virginia Democrats for a lift heading into the 2026 midterms. Former President Barack Obama had campaigned for her and the get together backed her in what was one in every of simply two governor’s races this yr.

“The DNC has been spending some huge cash and numerous time in Virginia,” mentioned DNC Vice Chair Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta at a gathering for get together volunteers in Northern Virginia. “As a result of we all know that what you all do and the momentum that’s going to come back out of your victories goes result in us flipping the Home of Representatives in 2026.”

In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe with 50.6% of the vote to 48.7%. Virginia governors are restricted to at least one four-year time period.

Spanberger, who served within the CIA earlier than operating for Congress in 2018, has cultivated a repute as a realistic centrist. The theme of her run for governor was “affordability” — chatting with Virginians’ considerations about rising prices of housing, utility payments, pharmaceutical medication, and the financial uncertainty she blamed on Trump’s tariffs and federal layoffs.

Earle-Sears, in the meantime, portrayed herself for example of the American dream — a Jamaican immigrant who grew to become a U.S. Marine and small enterprise proprietor.

She accused Spanberger of backing insurance policies on transgender rights that she mentioned are a menace to women’ security at school loos and locker rooms.

“Love just isn’t having my daughter having to be compelled to undress in a locker room with a person. That is not love,” Earle-Sears mentioned at a rally in late October. “Love is ensuring that our woman kids have alternatives in sports activities and usually are not compelled to play towards organic males.”

Earle-Sears’ stance on transgender college students in women’ loos sounded good to Elizabeth Drake, a voter who mentioned she works with youth at a church in Loudoun County.

“I really feel like we’re truly going again and setting ourselves again quite a bit by endangering girls,” she mentioned. “I am not saying that that does not imply we are able to have various areas for folks, however the girls’s locker rooms, girls’s loos, girls’s secure houses usually are not it.”

The race was jolted by late-breaking occasions

She additionally attacked Spanberger for supporting Biden administration insurance policies. She vowed to proceed business-friendly polices of outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Whereas she backed Trump’s insurance policies, Trump didn’t endorse her.

A number of developments impacted the ultimate weeks of the race. The federal shutdown shadowed the ultimate month of early voting, with each campaigns blaming the opposite get together for the stalemate.

Virginia lawmakers started contemplating a plan to redistrict the state’s congressional districts to favor Democratic candidates within the 2026 midterm elections, as President Trump pushes Republicans in different states to maneuver to favor their candidates. That could possibly be a problem dealing with the following Virginia governor.

And Republicans seized on revelations of textual content messages by Democratic candidate for lawyer common, Jay Jones, during which he described the hypothetical taking pictures of a Republican lawmaker. Spanberger denounced the messages although Earle-Sears faulted her for not calling on Jones to drop out of the race.

Jones was in a decent race Tuesday towards Republican incumbent Jason Miyares for the lawyer common’s workplace.

Margaret Barthel covers Virginia politics for WAMU.