This fall’s race for Virginia governor offers Democrats a chance to start recovering from stinging losses in last year’s presidential election.
It also brings the risk that the party could slip further into the doldrums that hurt its brand with voters around the country in 2024.
The Nov. 4 elections for governor of Virginia — pitting former Democratic U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger against Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — will serve as one of Democrats’ first major opportunities to rebound from the setbacks they suffered in the 2024 presidential election, when they also lost control of the Senate and failed to retake control of the House.
Spanberger to rally with Obama
Spanberger is set to rally with former President Barack Obama on the weekend before Election Day. President Trump, however, has had little involvement as Earle-Sears looks to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin and become the first GOP candidate since 1997 to succeed a fellow Republican as governor of the commonwealth.
Under Virginia law, a governor cannot serve for two consecutive terms, which has resulted in open races for the office without the advantage of incumbency. Regardless of who wins between the two in November, Spanberger or Earle-Sears will become the Commonwealth’s first ever female governor.
The Trump administration’s impact on the federal workforce and the ongoing shutdown may also be on voters’ minds in the coming days, as they get their say in a contest that historically has been fraught with prospect of serving as a rebuke to the incumbent in the White House.
“It is because of the trade wars and the retaliatory tariff policies and the attack on Virginia, our economy and our people, that we recognize the possibility of November 4, that we recognize how important it is to have a governor who will stand up for Virginians,” Spanberger said at a recent event.
State of the race
Spanberger headed into the start of early voting in September with a clear advantage in the contest. That momentum threatened to be impacted, however, by a controversy that has made its way through Virginia politics. She has faced difficult political questions in attempting to respond to violent text messages, authored by Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee in the Virginia Attorney General’s race, about a Republican leader.
“I’m asking my opponent to please, ask him to get out of the race,” Earle-Sears said during the lone debate between the two candidates. “Have some political courage. What you have done is you are taking political calculations about your future as governor. Well as governor, you have to make hard choices, and that means telling Jay Jones to leave the race.”
Spanberger has denounced Jones’ words, which were made public after the start of early voting, where he wrote in the past about a fantasy hypothetical situation involving the shooting of a Virginia state House Republican leader.
Jones however has not left the race, and is still running as the Democratic attorney general candidate in the Nov. 4 election.
That dynamic has provided Virginia Republicans with an issue against Democrats that could alienate moderates and independents at a time where concerns about political violence are rampant. Virginia Democrats are also mounting a last-minute effort to redraw congressional districts in the state to help the left counter Mr. Trump’s successful push in a series of red states to undertake an overhaul of district maps in hopes of helping Republicans hold on to the House in next year’s midterm elections.
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