Virginia’s upcoming gubernatorial race is poised to make history in 2025, with two women likely to lead the Republican and Democratic tickets.
Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) are the clear front-runners in their respective parties, with Republicans and Democrats largely falling in line behind them.
If Earle-Sears and Spanberger each win their respective primaries, one of them will go on to become the commonwealth’s first female governor. And if Earle-Sears wins the general election, she would be the first Black woman to lead the state, which was once the capital of the Confederacy.
“The Republican Party has been very late to the recruitment and the Democratic Party depended upon women voters, particularly African American women voters, but didn’t do very much to ascend them to positions,” said Bob Holsworth, a veteran Virginia political analyst.
The last woman to run in a general election for Virginia’s governor’s mansion was former Democratic state Attorney General Mary Sue Terry in 1993. She lost by more than 17 points to then-Rep. George Allen (R-Va.). That same off-year election saw then-Republican Christine Todd Whitman become the first woman to serve as New Jersey governor.
Women ran in Virginia’s Republican convention and the Democratic primary ahead of the commonwealth’s last gubernatorial race in 2021. Former state Sen. Amanda Chase (R) ran in the Republican convention that was ultimately won by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). In the Democratic primary, two Black women, now-Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.) and state Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy (D) ran, but the two lost to former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). The former governor carried 62 percent of the primary vote.
But four years later, the Republican and Democratic primary fields have largely cleared for Earle-Sears and Spanberger. Youngkin, arguably the most important endorsement in the state’s GOP primary, formally backed Earle-Sears for the post. The governor also backed state Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) for reelection, putting an end to speculation that Miyares and Earle-Sears would go head-to-head in a primary.
Meanwhile, in April, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D) dropped his gubernatorial bid, avoiding a potentially competitive primary with Spanberger, who launched her bid a little more than a year ago.
“It is really significant that not only are there going to be two women running but that both parties seem to be kind of clearing the field for them, which we have not necessarily seen,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.
While women across the board have slowly expanded their representation in Congress and state legislatures across the country, there are significantly fewer female governors.
“It’s been a bit of a challenge overall for women to move into those positions,” Walsh said, referring to a “notion that women work well collaboratively and in committees, which lends itself to legislatures but not so much to being chief executive.”
Forty-nine women have served as governors and only 12 women currently hold the position. The number will briefly rise to 14 when New Hampshire Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte (R) takes office next year, and Delaware Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long (D) will hold the position for two weeks after Gov. John Carney (D) resigns to become the mayor of Wilmington. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) will be leaving her post as governor to serve as President-elect Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, bringing the total number back down to 12.
There has never been a Black female governor in the U.S.
History indicates that female voters, particularly Black female voters, stand to play a deciding factor in Virginia’s off-year elections next year.
“Virginia is also interesting because Virginia was the state after Donald Trump was elected in 2016 that gave us our first indication of a big political mobilization of women in the legislative races there, where we saw record numbers of women running for the Legislature but also beating incumbents at a rate much higher than anyone would have expected, and it foretold the story of 2018,” Walsh said.
Former Gov. Ralph Northam (D) won 61 percent of female voters that year, while his Republican opponent Ed Gillespie received 39 percent of the female vote, according to exit polling. That same election also saw that of the 14 seats Democrats picked up in the House of Delegates that year, 11 of them went to female candidates. During the 2018 midterm elections, three Democratic women — Spanberger, Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) and former Rep. Elaine Luria (D) — ousted three incumbent Republicans in the state.
“The wildcard for Sears is obviously Trump, who has been historically unpopular in Virginia,” Holsworth said.
Still, Trump was able to improve on his standing in Virginia on Election Day, going from losing the state by 10 points in 2020 to losing it by just more than 5 points in 2024.
Black women, one of the few groups that Trump failed to make inroads with in 2024, will also be key in Virginia next year.
“They will be a powerful force in that race,” Walsh said. “We know that women in general are more likely to support the Democratic candidate, but there’s tremendous variation and the strongest group for Democratic candidates regardless of the gender of the candidate are Black women.”
As a Republican, Sears will likely face headwinds with Black female voters. However, Spanberger will also be faced with the task of galvanizing the state’s influential Black vote, something she has not had to do on a large scale in her congressional races.
“Critically she has to do well in the African American community and she’s never had to do that before,” Holsworth said. “The Democrats have to turn out people in the African American community in larger numbers than they have, and there was some backsliding from ‘20 to ‘24.”
But applying the trends of the 2024 presidential election to the 2025 gubernatorial race in Virginia may prove to be difficult.
“There’ll be a million less people who will vote in this election than did in the presidential election,” Holsworth said. “In an election where a million people aren’t voting, Spanberger needs to ensure that 60 percent of them aren’t Democrats.”
