Virginia is one of two states, the other being New Jersey, that have marquee gubernatorial races this November and will give some insight into how voters are evaluating President Donald Trump‘s second administration.
The commonwealth’s off-year elections have been widely seen as a bellwether for the following year’s midterm elections.
Democrats, led by gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, are hoping to flip all three statewide races after Republicans surged back into power in 2021, led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA). Virginia voters have historically voted for the party out of power in the White House for governor.
But GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is hoping she can convince enough voters satisfied with Youngkin’s administration to boost her to the governor’s mansion.
Here are the top issues dominating the race.
Jay Jones’s text debacle
The revelation in early October that Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones sent violent text messages in 2022 suggesting former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert should receive “two bullets to the head” jolted the election cycle in the final weeks of the campaign.
Republicans, led by Trump, called for Jones to exit the race and condemned Democrats who refused to call for Jones’s ouster. Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, who is seeking reelection, immediately announced that his campaign spent $1.5 million on an ad campaign highlighting disturbing, violent texts from Jones.
JAY JONES’S VIOLENT TEXT MESSAGES IN VIRGINIA BLEED INTO THE NATIONAL DEBATE
Miyares also repeatedly slammed Jones during their debate over the violent messages, even after Jones apologized.
“Let me be very clear. I am ashamed, I am embarrassed, and I am sorry. I am sorry to Speaker Gilbert,” Jones said. “I am sorry to his family. I am sorry to my family, and I am sorry to every single Virginian.”
Earle-Sears hammered Spanberger during their sole debate earlier this month over the issue.
“I was born in Jamaica, and when I was 10 years old, I saw that kind of political violence, which is why I’m asking my opponent to please ask him to get out of the race. Have some political courage,” she said during the onstage matchup.
A recent Christopher Newport University poll showed Miyares leading Jones by 1 point, 46% to 45%, well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 points, sparking concern that there may be a split-ticket election.
A government shutdown and DOGE play an outsize role
The Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash the federal workforce and the government shutdown are two of the major issues dominating the Virginia elections. Spanberger has consistently tied Earle-Sears to Trump, who never won Virginia in all three of his presidential campaigns.
TRUMP TEPIDLY EMBRACES EARLE-SEARS AS OBAMA STUMPS FOR SPANBERGER IN VIRGINIA
Virginia had at least 300,000 federal workers at the beginning of 2025, surpassing nearly all other states except Maryland. A report from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center, released in May, estimated Virginia would lose 32,000 jobs in 2025 and that the state’s unemployment rate would reach its highest level since 2021.
Anxiety over the economy and their jobs could cause Virginians to vote for Democrats out of anger over the policies coming out of Washington. The CNU poll showed democracy (18%) and inflation (18%) were the top issues for Virginia likely voters.
“People are already anxious about the economic situation. The shutdown makes it much worse,” Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, previously told the Washington Examiner.
Virginia Democrats wade into redistricting fight
Spurred by the GOP’s multistate campaign to redraw more favorable congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Virginia Democrats, who control the state legislature, announced their own plan to fast-track the redistricting of the Old Dominion.
EARLE-SEARS DECRIES VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING AMENDMENT PUSH AS ILLEGAL
“What they are doing at this moment is keeping alive the option of taking action into the future,” Spanberger told the Associated Press about not interfering with redistricting plans. “While I like to plan for everything, on this one, because I’m on the bus tour, because we are eight days away (from Election Day), I’m like, I will let the General Assembly take this step, and then we’ll talk calendar issues later.”
Earle-Sears claimed that what Democrats are doing is illegal.
“The people have to make that decision,” Earle-Sears said on Monday when asked if she would support a constitutional amendment to redraw the state’s congressional districts. “But it is not in its proper form. It is not in its proper process. It is not — in any way, shape, or form — legal. So what we’re not going to do is speculate on what is not properly before us.”
The General Assembly voted on Monday to consider a constitutional amendment, the first step to redrawing new districts. Virginia law requires that a constitutional amendment be approved in two consecutive sessions of the General Assembly, broken by an election in the middle.
Rising energy costs
As the election cycle nears its end, rising electricity prices have surged as one of the top issues for voters. Under Trump’s second administration, electricity prices have risen at a rate surpassing inflation.
A consumer price index report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month showed that electricity prices rose by about 6.2% for the year ending in August. This was more than double the rate of inflation, which rose slightly to 2.9% for the year.
Virginia is the data center capital of the world, according to Synergy Research Group, surpassing Beijing, China.
RISING ELECTRICITY COSTS SPARK VOTER ATTENTION IN VIRGINIA ELECTIONS
The culprit for the rising electricity prices, according to Republicans, including Earle-Sears, is renewable energy and clean energy policies, such as the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which aims to transition the state’s electric grid to 100% clean energy by 2050.
Dominion Energy estimates that to comply with the Virginia Clean Economy Act, there would be an increase of $255 a month by the end of 2035 and $268 by the end of 2045 for residential homes.
Spanberger claims that if elected, she will lower energy bills by increasing local energy generation with advanced technologies, such as nuclear power, fusion, geothermal, and hydrogen, and prevent data centers from driving up energy costs for other consumers.
Transgender children in public schools
Before the Jones text messaging scandal spread, Earle-Sears had repeatedly attacked Spanberger over her stance on whether transgender girls should be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and participate in girls’ sports.
The lieutenant governor is adamant that transgender girls be excluded from sports teams and banned from bathrooms, while Spanberger has dodged the subject and claimed that school issues should be handled locally.
“I think it’s incumbent upon parents and educators and administrators in each local community to make decisions locally,” Spanberger said during the debate earlier this month.
CULTURE ISSUES TRIED IN THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION WITH VIRGINIA ELECTION
After repeated attacks from Earle-Sears over the issue, Spanberger said, “There should never be naked men in locker rooms.”
The issue remains salient in several northern Virginia communities, where issues over transgender girls are still being hammered out. Moms for Liberty previously hosted a town hall over the issue in deep-blue Fairfax County.
Brady Knox and Callie Patteson contributed to this report.