“I’m proud to officially be the Republican nominee for Governor of Virginia,” Earle-Sears wrote on X. “We’ve made great progress over the past four years, but the fight for our Commonwealth is far from over. I’m ready to lead that fight and build a safer, stronger, more prosperous Virginia for every family.”
Earle-Sears will face Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former member of Congress. A poll released in February showed Spanberger with a double-digit lead, 39 percent to 24 percent, with a third of voters undecided. On Monday, Spanberger’s campaign announced it had raised nearly $7 million, a record first-quarter haul in the state.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin is prevented from running for reelection due to Virginia law limiting governors to a single four-year term. The lack of incumbents running in Virginia is one reason why its governor’s races normally turn out to be a negative referendum on the party holding the White House. Over the past half-century, the president’s party has lost in Virginia every four years, except for 2013.
Last year, Kamala Harris carried the state by 6 points.
Although Spanberger quickly cleared the field on the Democratic side, Earle-Sears will still have to mend fences. Both Chase and LaRock loudly complained that she is not sufficiently conservative.
“Unless there's something like pictures of Spanberger in blackface, the question is not ‘Will Abigail Spanberger become the next governor of Virginia,’” says Chaz Nuttycombe, president of State Navigate and an elections forecaster. “The question, in April, is ‘Can Republicans hold on to the lieutenant governor and attorney general offices, and how many Harris-won districts can Republicans hold?’”
Either Spanberger or Earle-Sears would be Virginia’s first woman governor. Virginia is one of three states that have elected Black governors; Earle-Sears would be the first Black woman governor in the state.
