Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger outraised her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by more than $3 million, according to the new campaign finance reports.
Spanberger reported raising $6.7 million during the first three months of 2025, more than double the $3.1 million raised by Earle-Sears, according to an analysis by the Virginia Public Access Project.
State law prohibited Earle-Sears, a current state official, from raising money during the General Assembly session, which ran from Jan. 8 through Feb. 22. As lieutenant governor, she presided over the state Senate. Earle-Sears ended the quarter with about $4 million in cash on hand, while Spanberger finished the period with about $11 million.
“I think it’s important to note that that funding gap will narrow now that the legislative session is over,” Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington, told the Virginia Mercury. “Now that the lieutenant governor is a Republican nominee, I imagine some Republicans were waiting for a resolution of the nomination process before weighing in with donations.”
Earle-Sears’s press secretary, Peyton Vogel, told the Washington Examiner that “Virginians are stepping up because they believe in her vision, her record, and her fight. We’ll have the resources we need to share Winsome’s story and take the case directly to voters — and that includes holding Abigail Spanberger accountable for her failures in Washington. This is just the beginning.”
Virginia gubernatorial races following a presidential race are widely viewed as a barometer for political sentiment. Democrats have tried to make the race about pushing back on President Donald Trump and his policies, while Republicans are looking to extend their winning streak in the state. Whichever candidate wins will go down in history as the first female governor of Virginia. If Earle-Sears wins, she would become the first black female governor in the country.
Spanberger’s two largest contributors were VoteVets Federal PAC, which gave $500,000, and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Working Families Fund, which gave $250,000. She also had deep-pocketed billionaire donors from California padding her coffers. They included LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Elizabeth Simons, daughter of hedge fund billionaire James Simons, and Gwendolyn Meyer, who has about $4.4 billion in the bank. They all donated $100,000.
Earle-Sears’s largest donor was Florida-based GOP megadonor Thomas Peterffy, who gave $300,000.
Earle-Sears’s campaign has accused Spanberger of purposely failing to include her role as a trustee in financial disclosure reports while she was a member of Congress. That trust, worth $900,000, should be “raising red flags about what else she might be hiding,” the Republican’s campaign said. Spanberger served in Congress from 2019 to 2025.
In 2017, Spanberger and her husband updated their will and, as part of that process, transferred ownership of their home into a trust that listed their children as beneficiaries. Spanberger’s campaign claimed she was never required to disclose her role in the trust and has maintained she followed all the rules as required by Congress.
She and her husband bought the Henrico County home for about $500,000. It is now worth nearly $1 million.
CARVILLE SUGGESTS AOC AND SANDERS SHOULD ‘SPLIT OFF’ FROM DEMOCRATIC PARTY
But Earle-Sears’s campaign isn’t backing down.
“Abigail Spanberger got caught hiding a trust — and not just any trust, but one holding nearly a million dollars in assets,” Vogel said in a statement. “That’s not an accident — that’s a calculated lie. Disclosure forms don’t require anyone to put their families at risk — only honesty. If she’s willing to lie about something this serious, Virginians just can’t trust her.”