Democrats are back in control of Virginia, just four years after Republican Glenn Youngkin shocked the political world by winning the governor’s mansion.
Democrat congresswoman Abigail Spanberger was declared the winner by most major decision desks within an hour of the polls closing, with Decision Desk HQ calling the race soon after polls closed.
Spanberger was favored to win the race over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. The former U.S. representative led Earle-Sears by between seven and 15 points in four late polls released on Monday, according to RealClearPolling. for Spanberger as returns began to show a flip in the governor’s mansion from red to blue.
Spanberger had a few fundamental advantages over Earle-Sears. As a Republican, Earle-Sears was disfavored from the start as the Virginia governor’s race rarely goes to a member of the same party as whoever won the White House the previous year. Since 1976, only once has that trend been broken.
Virginia had been declared a blue state before Youngkin won over former governor Terry McAuliffe in 2021, in an election that was driven by parents outraged over what was happening in Virginia schools. In one Loudoun County school, a sexual assault carried out by a skirt-wearing boy was covered up by administrators, who actually carried out punishments against the parent of the student victim.
President Donald Trump also remains unpopular in Virginia, having lost the state in three consecutive presidential elections. Spanberger spent much of her campaign running against the White House incumbent rather than taking Earle-Sears on directly.
Spanberger also had a heavy advantage in ad spending over Earle-Sears. The Democrat and her allies spent roughly $50 million on ads ahead of Tuesday’s contest, according to data from AdImpact. In contrast, Earle-Sears and her allies spent about $25 million.
“There’s more than a two-to-one spending advantage, Spanberger over Sears. And at some point, it’s just hard to come back from that amount of political spending differential,” Cygnal polling founder Brent Buchanan told Morning Wire ahead of the election.
Earle-Sears appeared to get a residual bump as scandals exploded further down the ticket involving Democrats’ nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones. The boost appeared to be short-lived as coverage of the scandal dropped off in the media, leaving Earle-Sears and her out-funded Republican allies to push the news out to voters.
When the race was called, the attorney general contest was still considered too close to call. Decision Desk HQ, which projects the final vote total as the votes come in, predicts that the race between Jones and incumbent Jason Miyares will come down to just a few percentage points.
Spanberger, a former CIA operative, was first elected to Congress in 2018.
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