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Abigail Spanberger, a former congresswoman and C.I.A. officer, will be the first woman to serve as governor of Virginia, following a streak of 74 men.
Nov. 4, 2025Updated 9:12 p.m. ET
Virginia voters elected Abigail Spanberger governor on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, delivering a potent repudiation of President Trump after a campaign that was laser-focused on attacking his policies.
Ms. Spanberger, a moderate Democrat who served three terms in Congress, defeated Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a socially conservative Republican who pledged her allegiance to Mr. Trump even though he did little to help her cash-starved campaign.
The A.P. called the race for Ms. Spanberger around 8 p.m., an hour after Virginia’s polls closed Tuesday night.
At her election night party, Ms. Spanberger’s victory remarks took a strikingly bipartisan tone. She praised her vanquished rival and pledged to be a governor for the voters who opposed her. “My goal and my intent is to serve all Virginians,” she said, a departure from the with-me-or-against-me ethos of Mr. Trump.
Ms. Spanberger’s commanding victory was hardly a surprise. She raised nearly twice as much money as Ms. Earle-Sears did and held double-digit leads in public and private polling of the race in its final weeks. When she takes office in January, Ms. Spanberger, 46 and a former C.I.A. officer, will be the first woman to serve as governor of Virginia, following a streak of 74 men.
At her election night watch party, the mood was jubilant. “Y’all ready to witness history tonight?” Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates, shouted before the race was called.
