The Future Could be Female (At Least in Virginia)
Out of 50 states, five hold elections for public office every year: Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Virginia. However, the 2025 election cycle stands out for one of these five states. This fall, the state of Virginia anticipates a historic race for governor.
51 women have served as commanders-in-chief in various states across America’s history, and in just less than nine months, Virginia could join other states by electing its first female governor. For now, the likely gubernatorial race is between former CIA agent and congressional representative Abigail Spanberger and Marine veteran and current lieutenant governor Winsome Earles-Sears. While Earles-Sears faces competition in the Republican primary, she is the frontrunner for the Republican ticket. As the June primaries approach, voters in every state should be paying attention to the outcome of Virginia’s election, which could bring a powerful reckoning about gender in American politics.
As the smoke from the 2024 presidential election clears, Virginia’s elections swiftly avoid the media frenzy from national politics that can overshadow local and state elections. Conversely, the election cycle is also burdened by the tumultuous events of 2024, which raised concerns about voter fatigue, candidate quality, and barriers to voting. Seeing voter turnout in the June primaries and the November election will provide a clearer picture of the effects that 2024 had on voters.
The prospects of Virginia making history bring optimism: Virginia is no stranger to supporting female candidates for public office in its past. Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris scored a victory among 52% of Virginians. Today, women make up over one-third of Virginia’s legislature, making the election of a female governor more likely than ever before in the state’s history.
While the Democratic Party continues to reel from Harris’ presidential election loss, the historic nature of Virginia’s gubernatorial race risks being sidelined to hyper-polarization among the party’s leadership. The election of a new chairman for the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, spotlights what a new and improved Democratic Party could look like as its leaders continue to do a “post-election review”. During an interview with MSNBC, Martin expresses that his goals as the chairman of the DNC will be for the DNC to get out of D.C., stating, “So many parts of our coalition left us this last election cycle, right? ... From Latino voters to working-class households, to young voters, to women. You can go down the list, the only two groups we overperformed with last election cycle were wealthy households and college-educated voters. That's a damning indictment of the Democratic Party”. Martin continued to argue the need for the party to improve its messaging between its coalitions while walking a fine line between opposing Republicans and avoiding “perpetual resistance” against the Trump administration. Martin remarks,"But we also need to give people a sense of who we are as Democrats, what we believe in and what we're fighting for”.
Ken Martin‘s words ring true for Abigail Spanberger, who came into prominence after winning one of Virginia’s toughest Republican stronghold districts, who seems to be echoing similar messages regarding the weakness of the Democratic party following the 2024 election. Spanberger emphasized her focus on reaching across the aisle to achieve political victories, stating, “I have been able to get bills across the finish line, signed into law, by bringing people together… And that doesn’t mean in any way we are sacrificing our principles or priorities. But it’s a question of what is the desired outcome here. Do we want to get something done? Or do we want to be at a stalemate?” Spanberger is described as a centrist moderate prepared to bring the cost of prescription drugs down and bring the number of teachers in Virginia schools up through bipartisanship. During her tenure in Congress, Spanberger was recognized as one of the most bipartisan members in Congress, and when discussing her campaign, Spanberger detailed what makes her a strong candidate: “The basic premise of how I operate and campaign is that I go everywhere, and I engage with everyone… The reality is that I have been able to outperform typical Democratic performance in a variety of communities where I’ve been on the ballot, and it’s about speaking to the issues that matter locally.” Spanberger displays an aptitude for winning conservative voters without losing card-carrying Democrats, an impressive characteristic that could make her Virginia’s first female governor.
Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign is following in the footsteps of current Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin while maintaining a safe distance from the Trump administration. Across the nation, a Republican candidate’s election into public office continues to be influenced by their affiliation with MAGA. In 2020, Earle-Sears co-chaired a group supporting Trump’s re-election called Black Americans to Re-elect President Trump. Since then, Earle-Sears created distance between her and President Trump, whom she refused to support in her 2023 memoir, writing, “For the good of the nation, I do not think he should run again in 2024.” While Earle-Sears is condemned by her primary opponents for her critiques of Trump, Earle-Sears continues to rely around the Trump administration's latest executive orders. When questioned about the federal layoffs, she stated, “There are opportunities that we haven’t spoken about yet that are still on the table and they’re just waiting for a signature. You heard me say the 1,000 jobs that we created, the new 59 jobs that we created. So, things are happening. So, I think Virginia is going to be alright.” Earle-Sears continues to support President Trump’s audit of federal agencies while carefully expressing sympathies with Virginia voters facing the brunt of the second Trump term. Earle-Sears carries an agile nature for defying odds by previously ousting a ten-term Democratic delegate in the House of Delegates before becoming the first Black woman elected statewide, a quality that could win over Virginians this November.
The Spanberger and Earle-Sears campaigns are a smoke signal for those concerned about the prospects of women in Trump’s America. Their campaigns illustrate that women are still very much here to be reckoned with, on both sides of the political aisle.
The last election cycle had unprecedented and historically defining moments (two assassination attempts in one summer!) that superseded the dramatized depiction of American politics on acclaimed television shows like West Wing or Scandal. While one can hope for a more tame election season in Virginia, the prospects of history being made with the state’s first female governor after the loss of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign could no longer be fiction for Virginia residents. Former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears candidacy this far into the gubernatorial race illustrates a larger trend in American politics: slowly, but surely, we are modernizing. Both parties present formidable candidates with resumes that exemplify their commitment to public service and rhetoric that echoes a yearning for change and plans to achieve it. Spanberger and Earle-Sears' prospects as governor aren’t just about their gender identity as women but about the slow erosion of archaic gender perceptions and structures that continue to keep women out of positions of power. The outcome of this election sends a signal to all American voters that whatever the future looks like, women will have a role in shaping it—for once.