Democrats sweep Virginia’s statewide races, reclaiming full control of executive branch

Democrats completed a clean statewide sweep in Virginia on Tuesday night, as former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger defeated Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for governor, Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, topped conservative talk-show host John Reid in the lieutenant governor’s race, and former state delegate Jay Jones unseated incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares in a contest clouded by controversy.

Spanberger won with 55 % of the vote to 44.8% for Earle-Sears, while Hashmi prevailed 53.2 % to 46.6 %, and Jones edged Miyares 52.2 % to 47.4 %, according to the Associated Press and unofficial data from the Virginia Department of Elections at 10:10 p.m.

The Democratic victories delivered a sharp rebuke to Virginia’s Republican establishment, which had controlled the executive branch since Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s election in 2021. After years of narrow statewide races and shifting partisan tides, voters restored full Democratic control of all three statewide offices for the first time since 2017.

Spanberger, a former three-term congresswoman from Henrico County, ran on a message of stability and moderation — emphasizing economic security, reproductive rights and a pragmatic governing style. 

“It’s a big deal that the girls and the young women I have met along the campaign trail now know with certainty that they can achieve anything,” Spanberger said in her victory speech as she reflected on making history as Virginia’s first woman governor.

Earle-Sears, a conservative firebrand and the state’s first Black woman lieutenant governor, leaned into cultural themes and parental-rights rhetoric that helped define the GOP’s earlier resurgence. But her alliance with President Donald Trump and friction with members of her own party over abortion and voting rules blunted her crossover appeal.

“I have just called Abigail, and she did not answer,” Earle-Sears said at her gathering with supporters in Leesburg. “I left her a voicemail and I asked her to please consider all of us Virginians, that she will represent all of us, and not just some of us. And I wished her success. If she is successful, Virginia will be successful, that’s what I wish for her.”

Hashmi, a state senator from Richmond and the first Muslim woman elected to the General Assembly, cast her campaign as a moral counterpoint to the GOP’s direction under Reid, a Richmond radio host whose campaign mixed populist outrage with anti-establishment flair. 

“Virginia has chosen leadership that lifts people up instead of tearing them down. Together, we have proven that — in Virginia — a child’s name, a family’s personal struggles, and a community’s identity are not barriers to belonging,” Hashmi said in a statement after she was declared the winner.

Reid entered the race under a cloud of controversy after news reports revealed a trove of old Tumblr posts containing inflammatory and racially charged language, prompting Youngkin to publicly call on him to end his campaign in the spring. The episode fractured Republicans just months before the primary elections, as party leaders scrambled to contain the fallout. 

Reid’s decision to later stage a “debate” against an AI-generated version of Hashmi — after she declined to share the stage with him — drew ridicule from Democrats and independents alike, underscoring how much the GOP ticket had veered off message in the final stretch.

And in the attorney general’s race, Jones overcame his own baggage — a storm over offensive text messages he sent in 2022 that surfaced this fall — to narrowly oust Miyares, a Republican who rose to prominence as one of the party’s most aggressive critics of Virginia’s universities and public prosecutors.

“My ancestors were slaves,” Jones said after his win. “My grandfather was a civil rights pioneer who braved Jim Crow. My father, my mother, my uncles, my aunts endured segregation all so that I can stand here before you today.”

A wave built on economic worries and rights debates

This year’s races unfolded against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and social-policy tension that defined much of the 2025 cycle. Virginia’s exposure to federal employment — more than 140,000 civilian jobs tied directly to Washington — made the state particularly sensitive to federal layoffs and shutdown threats under the Trump administration’s cost-cutting push. 

Spanberger and other Democrats seized on that anxiety, warning that continued federal downsizing could threaten both household stability and the state’s long-term revenue base. In February, Virginia lawmakers scrambled to shield the state’s economy from what they considered a potential federal workforce crisis.

Health-care access, reproductive rights, and Medicaid funding also loomed large. 

Hospital administrators warned that hundreds of thousands of Virginians could lose coverage if federal matching funds were reduced. And when Congress began flirting with another shutdown in September, hospitals braced for the fallout. 

Spanberger, who consistently led in polls through the summer, framed those issues around “basic competence and care.” Even as the race tightened in the final stretch before the election, a VCU survey found Spanberger ahead of Earle-Sears outside the margin of error.

Controversies and campaign contrasts

The most explosive subplot of this cycle came in the attorney general’s race, when texts from Jones surfaced in early October  in which he appeared to fantasize about violence toward a Republican House speaker and his family. The revelations jolted Virginia’s political world, prompting even some Democrats to question whether he could remain viable.

Republicans hoped the scandal would sink the entire Democratic ticket, with Earle-Sears sharply questioning Spanberger’s support of Jones during the gubernatorial candidates’ only debate. 

But Jones weathered the storm by apologizing repeatedly and pivoting to the same bread-and-butter issues dominating the governor’s race. His debate with Miyares at the University of Richmond underscored the campaign’s stark tone, as both men clashed over accountability and integrity. 

Hashmi’s race against Reid offered its own spectacle. Reid’s late-season stunts — including the “AI debate” — generated viral moments but failed to expand his coalition beyond conservative talk-radio listeners. 

Hashmi stayed on message about reproductive rights and classroom equality, themes that resonated with suburban voters in Richmond and Northern Virginia.

Earle-Sears, meanwhile, struggled to distance herself from Trump’s renewed political shadow and from intra-party feuds that spilled into public view after the spring resignation of GOP lieutenant governor nominee Reid’s predecessor on the ticket. A so-called “unity rally” by the Republican slate in Vienna in July did little to undo the damage.

Turnout and strategy

Democrats benefited from a late-cycle boost when the Democratic National Committee poured six figures into Virginia’s get-out-the-vote effort, helping blunt GOP enthusiasm and ensuring strong turnout in vote-rich suburbs. 

Republicans invested heavily in Southside and Southwest Virginia but struggled to match Democrats’ ground game in the suburbs — particularly in Henrico, Loudoun and Virginia Beach, where abortion rights and federal job security dominated.

The results put Virginia Democrats back in full control of the state’s top offices for the first time in four years and will potentially reshape the political map ahead of 2026’s congressional midterm contests.

Spanberger’s victory gives Democrats a seasoned executive with national security credentials and bipartisan appeal, while Hashmi’s historic win breaks another glass ceiling in a state where diverse candidates have steadily redefined the political mainstream. And Jones’ comeback — despite his missteps — cements a generational shift within the party’s ranks.

Spanberger’s incoming administration faces immediate tests — from navigating economic fallout from federal job losses and protecting health-care funding to managing the political tension between Northern Virginia’s booming suburbs and rural regions fearful of being left behind. 

For Republicans, Tuesday’s results trigger a reckoning. 

Once buoyed by Youngkin’s 2021 success and Earle-Sears’ barrier-breaking rise, the party now finds itself out of statewide power and searching for a message that resonates beyond its conservative base.

Virginia Mercury reporters Nathaniel Cline, Charlotte Rene Woods and Shannon Heckt contributed to this story.

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