The former congresswoman entered the race as a rising star but struggled to contend with questions on transgender issues and her party’s disgraced AG nominee
Former Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D.) secured victory over lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears (R.) in the Old Dominion’s gubernatorial race. The result, though expected, came at a cost for Spanberger, who struggled to answer questions on transgender issues and faced criticism late in the race for standing by her party’s disgraced attorney general nominee, Jay Jones.
Earle-Sears trailed Spanberger by 9.2 points with 34 percent of the vote reported when the Associated Press called the race just before 8:00 p.m.
Spanberger was branded as a rising star within the Democratic Party long before she ran for governor. In 2018, she was part of a “historic” class of freshman congresswomen, and she took on House Democrats’ “battleground leadership representative” role four years later.
Still, Spanberger sometimes found herself on her back foot against Earle-Sears. She refused to give clear answers as to whether she supports biological boys playing in girls’ sports and using girls’ bathrooms, at one point fleeing when a reporter pressed her on her position. While in Congress, Spanberger voted against a bill that sought to prohibit males from participating in female sports programs, but she has not clarified how she’ll handle the issue as governor.
Spanberger also faced late pressure to distance herself from Jones after texts surfaced showing him fantasizing about putting “two bullets to the head” of a GOP lawmaker.
During her debate against Earle-Sears last month, Spanberger refused five times to withdraw her endorsement of Jones. Eventually, she quietly rewrapped her campaign bus to remove Jones’s name. Spanberger’s polling dipped as she refused to drop her endorsement of Jones, though it ultimately recovered.
A number of prominent Democrats came to Virginia to campaign alongside Spanberger, including former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and governors Josh Shapiro (Pa.), Andy Beshear (Ky.), Gretchen Whitmer (Mich.), and Wes Moore (Md.). In what may be a sign of Spanberger’s future standing in the party, much of the national spotlight on her race centered on how those figures campaigned for her ahead of expected 2028 presidential runs.
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