In approximately one month, Virginians will cast their vote in the 2025 gubernatorial election, which will take place on November 4, 2025. The current governor, Glenn Youngkin, will be ineligible for reelection as Virginia’s state constitution prohibits governors from serving consecutive terms. Therefore, the two principal candidates running for this position this fall are the current Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, and the Democratic candidate, Abigail Spanberger.
Winsome Earle-Sears immigrated to the United States from Jamaica at the age of six, where she grew up in the Bronx in New York City. After obtaining a degree from Old Dominion University, Earl-Sears served in the United States Marines as an electrician and also directed a Salvation Army women’s homeless shelter. Earl-Sears began her political career in 2001, upsetting the 20-year Democratic incumbent, Billy Robinson, in the 90th district seat election in the Virginia House of Delegates. In 2011, Governor Bob McDonnell appointed her as Vice President of the Virginia State Board of Education. In subsequent years, she received presidential appointments, including one to the US Census Bureau, where she co-chaired the African American Committee. In 2021, she won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor and went on to win the race, securing the office she holds today.
Abigail Spanberger was born in New Jersey and moved to the suburbs of Richmond when she was 13. Spanberger, a UVA graduate, began her career in the early 2000s teaching English literature as a substitute in Northern Virginia and working as a postal inspector. In 2006, Spanberger began working at the CIA as an operations officer, researching nuclear proliferation and terrorism. In 2017, she announced her candidacy for the House of Representatives in Virginia’s 7th District and won against Tea Party incumbent Republican Dave Brat. She faced reelection contests in 2020 and 2022, and in both, she was able to maintain her position, albeit with slim majorities of 51% in 2020 and 52% in 2022. In 2023, she announced she would not be running for reelection to Congress, but instead would turn her sights to the 2025 gubernatorial election.
Winsome Earle-Sears has clarified that, if elected governor, her platform will prioritize reducing the cost of living. Earle-Sears states that she seeks to lower taxes by enacting common-sense tax cuts that will target the state tax rates and remove them from the books, such as the Virginia car tax. She promises to examine Virginia’s budget records and eliminate wasteful government spending. Earle-Sears also wants to target a wide array of regulations across various industries whose heavy-handed effects, according to her platform, disincentivize corporations within Virginia. Earl-Sears attributes the current failures of Virginia Democrats to the root of the legal system’s ineffectiveness and the lack of funding for law enforcement in the state. She leverages her background in the Marines to advocate for a strengthened justice system and a crackdown on crime in Virginia. Earle-Sears is an ardent advocate of school choice and the right-to-work policy. She also advocates for the expansion of the Trump Administration’s action to ensure “fairness” in women’s sports by barring entry to those whose sex was assigned male at birth.
Abigail Spanberger’s platform highlights her experience in federal law enforcement, which she also leverages to promote her crime policy proposals, including expanding resources available to first responders and addressing the fentanyl crisis. Spanberger’s platform also focuses heavily on the protection of social rights for racial, religious, and sexual/gender minorities, as well as advocating for the maintenance of abortion access and contraceptives in the state, in light of the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Spanberger, who has a history of supporting the Affordable Care Act, is also championing a platform that includes lowering prescription drug costs and protecting the expansion of Virginia’s Medicare programs. Spanberger seeks to address gaps in school budgets and opposes proposals to divert public dollars from the state school system. Another key facet of Spanberger’s platform is increasing the state government’s transparency and integrity, citing her bipartisan experience advocating for checks on the finances of congressional members while a representative of Virginia’s 7th district.
With partisan tensions rising across the country, especially in light of the recent assassination of conservative political figure Charlie Kirk, consistent disapproval of the Trump administration, and increasing inflation, Virginia’s gubernatorial election is theorized to act as a political thermometer amidst the range of potent factors affecting the American political climate.
If you are a Virginia resident or studying in the state, the last day to register to vote online or request a mail-in ballot is Friday, October 24th; however, in-person registration continues up until and on Election Day. To check the status of your registration, find your polling place, or if you are an out-of-state student seeking to register to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial election, visit https://vote.gov/register/virginia for more information and resources.
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