With just weeks to go until Virginians cast their ballots in the state’s off-year gubernatorial election on November 4, 2025, the race between Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger and Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears is heating up in dramatic and unpredictable ways. As the only two states to hold gubernatorial elections the year after a presidential contest, Virginia and New Jersey often serve as early barometers for national political sentiment. But this year, two late-breaking developments have added new layers of complexity and urgency to Virginia’s already high-stakes contest.
Abigail Spanberger, a former U.S. Representative, is running as the Democratic nominee, while Winsome Earle-Sears, Virginia’s current lieutenant governor, represents the Republican ticket. Both candidates appeared at the 54th Annual Buena Vista Labor Day Festival on September 1, 2025, underscoring the campaign’s intensity as the election nears. The stakes are considerable: the governor’s office has become a pivotal platform for either supporting or opposing the Trump administration’s policies, and the outcome could ripple down-ballot, affecting numerous other races across the commonwealth.
For months, Spanberger’s campaign has zeroed in on the economic anxieties of Virginians, especially the state’s large federal workforce. According to data from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Policy, about 320,000 federal workers call Virginia home, not to mention thousands more who work on federal contracts. Since July 2025, the state has lost approximately 11,000 federal jobs—a staggering figure that doesn’t even account for Virginians who work in Washington, D.C., but reside in the state. The government shutdown, which saw many workers furloughed or forced to work without pay, has only deepened the economic unease.
Spanberger has repeatedly highlighted these issues, both on the campaign trail and during the race’s sole debate. She’s argued that the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce have left many families in Virginia struggling. “My opponent refused to call on President Trump to stop this chaos. Virginians saw with their own eyes that Winsome Earle-Sears’ loyalty to Donald Trump will always come first, no matter the cost to Virginians and their families,” the Spanberger campaign said in a statement after a fresh wave of federal layoffs was announced. “That’s not leadership — that’s betraying the people of Virginia who she was elected to serve.”
The economic message appears to be resonating. Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, told Beritaja that the upheavals in government employment and contracting have created a “very, very damaging environment for Republicans” this November. Spanberger, he noted, has led in most public polling by nearly 10 points throughout the race. “A year ago, the economy was a great benefit to Republicans when they could talk about the Biden economy,” Farnsworth explained. “But a year later, with a Republican governor and a Republican president, the Democrats are the ones who have the advantage in the economic conversation.”
Yet, Republicans have found their own rallying cry in the form of a scandal involving Democratic Attorney General candidate Jay Jones. In 2022, Jones sent a series of inflammatory text messages to a Republican member of the House of Delegates, including violent language about Republican leaders and their families—a revelation first reported by the National Review. Jones later apologized, expressing remorse and calling the messages unacceptable. But the damage was done. The Earle-Sears campaign quickly seized on the controversy, running ads that tie Spanberger to Jones and featuring a clip of Spanberger telling supporters to “let your rage fuel you”—a phrase she has used as a call to campaign volunteering.
Republican strategists argue the scandal could energize conservative voters, especially those still shaken by the recent assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Zack Roday, a partner at the Republican-leaning Ascent Media, told Beritaja, “It’s going to fire up a whole lot of infrequent, probably right-of-center to conservative voters that are not Republican consistent voters.” Calls for Jones to drop out have come from Virginia Republicans, President Trump, and multiple law enforcement associations. Spanberger and other prominent Democrats have condemned the messages but stopped short of urging Jones to leave the race. At the debate, Spanberger reiterated her condemnation, but maintained, “Jones is running his own race and voters should decide what to do with the information.”
Beyond the economic and ethical controversies, cultural issues have also come to the fore. Earle-Sears has intensified her campaign to ban transgender students from girls’ sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms in Virginia’s public schools. She’s made appearances at school board meetings in Northern Virginia to protest gender-expansive policies and criticized Spanberger for supporting “boys and men in girls’ spaces.” Speaking after a Moms for Liberty event in Fairfax County, Earle-Sears told reporters, “We, as women, want our private spaces. There’s nothing hard about that.”
This message has struck a chord with some voters, like Ursula Baukol, a self-described “moderate conservative” and federal contractor. “It just seems that now there’s more of a push … of the schools to over-insert themselves in the whole sort of sexuality issues,” Baukol told Beritaja, expressing concern that schools are sharing content about sexuality and gender too early.
Spanberger, for her part, has largely avoided transgender issues on the campaign trail, instead advocating for local control over bathroom and locker room policies. She argues such decisions are best left to parents, teachers, students, and their school districts. At the debate, Spanberger also criticized Earle-Sears’ past written statements opposing same-sex marriage, suggesting they are out of touch with Virginians’ support for marriage equality. Earle-Sears responded, “That’s not discrimination!” and her campaign later clarified she considers marriage equality “settled law.”
Despite the charged rhetoric, polling from The Washington Post and George Mason University suggests that most voters put economic concerns well above issues related to transgender students in schools. The economy remains the top priority for Virginians, with the debate over girls’ spaces ranking much lower on the list of voter concerns.
As of mid-October 2025, more than 400,000 early votes had already been cast—a sign that Virginians are highly engaged, perhaps spurred by both the economic turmoil and the heated cultural debates. With the final days ticking down, both campaigns are working overtime to turn out their bases and sway the undecided. As history shows, Virginia’s off-year elections can be unpredictable, and with so much on the line, neither side is leaving anything to chance.
The outcome of this contest will not only determine Virginia’s next governor but could also set the tone for national politics heading into the 2026 midterms. As the candidates make their closing arguments, Virginians are left to weigh a dizzying array of issues—each with real consequences for the future of their state.
