In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.
Virginia Republicans scored a monumental victory in 2021. After 12 years of sustained statewide losses, the party emerged from the wilderness and swept the three statewide races that year, led by outsider Glenn Youngkin, who became the commonwealth’s first Republican governor since Bob McDonnell left office in 2014.
Virginia’s gubernatorial elections are unique in American politics in that no other state makes its governor a lame duck the moment he is sworn in, as term limits prohibit consecutive terms. No Virginia governor has ever run for reelection as an incumbent, although two governors have succeeded in winning nonconsecutive terms.
The commonwealth’s proximity to Washington, D.C., means that national politics inevitably looms over the gubernatorial race, which is made all the more interesting due to the fact that Virginia has rarely been a swing state in national elections, shifting from reliably Republican to reliably Democratic in a single election cycle. It backed the Republican presidential nominee in every election from 1968 until 2004, and from 2008 onward, it has backed the Democratic nominee, all by fairly uncompetitive margins — the closest was a 4-point win for President Barack Obama in 2012. In 2004, it had two Republican senators, and four years later, it had two Democratic senators and still does.
EDUCATION RETURNS TO CENTER STAGE IN VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL RACE
But amid those changes on the national level, one trademark Virginia trait has held: The commonwealth tends to elect governors from the party out of power in the White House. It is a trend that has held true when Republicans reliably won the state in presidential elections, and it has largely held true since Democrats have dominated the state federally. In fact, since the election of Jimmy Carter as president in 1976, Virginia has only ever elected a governor from the president’s party once, in 2013.
All that is to say that the GOP was always in a tough position heading into the 2025 gubernatorial election. But with a series of political gifts from a weak slate of Democratic nominees, there is a feeling that the party’s ticket, led by Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R-VA), has an outside chance to defy the historical and partisan trends and come out on top.
The first sign of a possible shift in the political winds was the viral image of a liberal protester at an Earle-Sears rally with a sign that said, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.”
The viral moment forced Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger onto her heels for the first time in a campaign where she had been on a seemingly easy glide to the finish line. While Spanberger disavowed the protester, it proved to be a canary in a coal mine for a much bigger problem for the Democratic ticket.
On Oct. 3, National Review published a series of text messages that came from the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general, Jay Jones, calling for the assassination of Republican House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert and his family. Spanberger, along with a number of other prominent Democrats, condemned the messages but refused to say if they disqualified Jones from the office he seeks to hold.
These two events, which have laid bare the dangerous radicalism infecting the Democratic Party, have spurred a last-minute investment from national and state organizations that see an opening for the GOP to at least hang on in the attorney general race, if not the whole statewide ticket.
But the Republican ticket would be in a far better position to capitalize on its opponents’ vulnerabilities if the party and the Earle-Sears campaign had not spent the last several months asleep at the wheel. Until the last-minute scandals plaguing the Democratic ticket, fundraising was anemic, and campaign infrastructure was largely nonexistent.
Virginia counties that are reliably Republican and where pro-GOP campaign signs are typically abundant are largely barren today. One could visit these regions of the commonwealth and have no idea there was even a campaign going on.
In March, I wrote about how Earle-Sears’s campaign was a lackluster operation that was devoid of a positive vision that defines campaigns that successfully buck unfavorable political trends. The Spanberger campaign has been equally lackluster but has had more room for error precisely because of the favorable climate for Democrats.
In the last week, the Republican Governors Association, perhaps sensing a last-minute opening for the Republican candidate, has poured $1.5 million into the campaign. But the feeling is that it could be too little, too late.
In 2021, the Youngkin-led ticket succeeded in no small part because it had a compelling message that coincided with a strong contrast to its opponent. That year, Youngkin trailed in nearly every single poll until the last week of the race. But unlike this year, the GOP and the Youngkin campaign invested in the race early, even when victory seemed like a long shot.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, which tracks election data in the commonwealth, the Youngkin ticket and its affiliated groups spent $29 million on ads in 2021, a sum that was not far below the Democratic ticket and its affiliated groups, which spent $31 million.
A week-by-week analysis of ad spending during that campaign showed that spending parity was consistent throughout the months leading up to Election Day and was not due to a last-minute surge.
But 2025 is a completely different story. To date, the Earle-Sears campaign and its affiliated groups have spent $11 million on ads. Meanwhile, the Spanberger campaign and its affiliated groups have spent more than double that: $22.9 million. And a week-by-week analysis shows the same pattern. The Earle-Sears campaign and its supporting groups have been consistently outspent by a 2:1 margin for months.
That was, until last week, when a surge in spending by outside groups supporting Earle-Sears leveled the playing field. Still, the Earle-Sears campaign, likely due to a lack of resources, is relying on its allied groups to reach voters far more than Youngkin did.
A Republican operative in Virginia told me that the Earle-Sears campaign had lagged during periods of the campaign when it should have been introducing its candidate to voters and offering a clear policy agenda. Instead, the campaign is now relying on simply drawing a contrast with Spanberger. In other words, the message is “vote for me, I’m not the other girl.”
Much of this failure can be chalked up to Earle-Sears’s lagging fundraising efforts. As of Sept. 30, the Spanberger campaign had raised $53.7 million throughout the campaign, while Earle-Sears had raised only $25.9 million.
Nevertheless, in a race where the margin for error for the GOP is zero, running a campaign exclusively built on contrast is a tough sell, especially when its candidate is being outspent 2:1. Voters will typically default to neutral political trends in races where neither candidate is delivering a charismatic message. But October surprises, such as the one that rocked the attorney general race, have a way of reversing trends. But when one party hasn’t been putting in the effort to maintain a strong campaign infrastructure with good fundraising, the ability to capitalize on an opponent’s scandal is necessarily going to be limited.
As I mentioned earlier, Youngkin trailed in nearly every poll in 2021 except for the week before the election, according to the RealClearPolitics average. This year, Earle-Sears has not led a single poll throughout the entire campaign and has often trailed by double digits. But the race is showing signs that it could be narrowing.
JASON MIYARES HAMMERS JAY JONES OVER LEAKED TEXTS DURING VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL DEBATE
In the polls conducted since the Jones scandal broke, Spanberger has seen her lead dwindle significantly. Several of those polls have her with only a 3-point lead in a race she was leading by double digits a month ago. Earle-Sears is very much alive in the race and can still win.
But if, as is expected, she doesn’t, and Spanberger is sworn in as the 75th governor of the commonwealth even after the scandals that rocked her party’s ticket in the late stages of the campaign, the GOP will be left wondering if its failure to invest in the campaign early cost it the opportunity to defy the historical trends and keep the governor’s mansion in Republican hands.