Abigail Spanberger Elected Governor of Virginia With About 57.6% of the Vote, Becoming the State's First Woman Governor
On the night of November 4, 2025, in Richmond, the capital of Virginia, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the incumbent lieutenant governor, to be elected the 75th governor of Virginia, becoming the first woman ever to lead the commonwealth. The Associated Press called the race less than an hour after polls closed; returns showed Spanberger with about 57.6% of the vote to Earle-Sears's 42.2%, a margin of about 15 points and the largest for a Democrat in a Virginia governor's race since 1961.
Spanberger, 46, served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and previously worked as a CIA case officer. She will succeed Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who was term-limited, and is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 17, 2026. She campaigned on economic and cost-of-living issues and criticized federal workforce cuts and the government shutdown for their impact on the state's several hundred thousand federal employees.
In Richmond, she told supporters that Virginia had sent a message to every corner of the commonwealth and to the whole world: that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship and chose its commonwealth over chaos. She also noted that her husband had just told their daughters that their mother was going to be the governor of Virginia, words that had never been spoken in the state before.
Democrats completed a sweep of Virginia's three statewide offices the same night: Ghazala Hashmi was elected lieutenant governor, becoming the first Muslim woman to win statewide office in the United States; Jay Jones was elected attorney general, becoming the state's first Black attorney general; and Democrats retained control of the state legislature. In her concession speech, Earle-Sears said she hoped Spanberger would govern as a moderate and unite the state.
Related: Sherrill Elected Governor of New Jersey
Related: Mamdani Elected Mayor of New York City
Source: Virginia Department of Elections
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Abigail Spanberger 任联邦众议员时期的官方肖像（资料照片）。美国众议院官方照片，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Official portrait of Abigail Spanberger from her tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives (file photo). U.S. House official photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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