Democrat Abigail Spanberger has been elected governor of Virginia, per the Associated Press. She will be the first woman in the commonwealth’s history to hold the role.
Spanberger was favored against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for the entire campaign season. Still, the race was closely watched by political prognosticators and operatives, as the purple state is thought to give some insight into voter sentiment nationwide.
In her victory speech, Spanberger called for Virginia to “unite” and “set an example for the rest of the nation.”
“Our founders understood this from the very beginning. They didn’t choose to call Virginia a commonwealth by accident. They chose it to signify that our government would be based on the power of the people united for a common good,” she said. “Tonight, Virginia proved that that tradition is alive and well.”
The former congresswoman ran hammered issues of affordability and Trump’s federal workforce cuts, a kitchen-table issue in the D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia. That careful strategy was rattled after texts from Attorney General candidate Jay Jones leaked. In those messages from 2022, Jones bad-mouthed state-level Republicans. At one point, he shared that if he was given a gun with two bullets and in a room with Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and the former Speaker of Virginia’s state House, he would shoot the GOP speaker twice.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly praised Spanberger’s win. The chair of the Democratic Governors Association called the race a “warning sign to all Republicans running in 2026” in a statement.
“Abigail won by building support from voters across party lines because she stayed relentlessly focused on her positive plans to lower costs and her commitment to putting service ahead of politics,” Kelly said.
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