Topline Takeaways

• After winning 57% of the vote, Rep. Abigail Spanberger has become the first female governor in Virginia's history.
• Spanberger's win is better defined by Winsome Earle-Sears' loss. Earle Sears lost roughly 215,000 votes compared to Youngkin's 2021 performance, despite 5% more total votes being cast in the 2025 election.
• Earle-Sears' loss disproves the Republican theory that nonwhite candidates can help the party make inroads with nonwhite voters as the areas where she saw the biggest losses were in heavily Black counties and cities.

"All Skinfolk Ain't Kinfolk"

Republicans took a major gamble in this gubernatorial race as they chose to nominate Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, in hopes that a Black conservative could help bring new nonwhite voters to the party. This strategy backfired spectacularly as Earle-Sears lost votes in every county across the state except two (New Kent and Goochland) when comparing to Youngkin's 2021 gubernatorial victory. Earle-Sears completely failed to maintain the strong coalition of Youngkin supporters in the state's western regions as many of these municipalities reporting significant drops in total votes. It comes as no surprise as Youngkin's 2021 campaign animated primarily rural white voters by stoking racial animosity amongst his base. Despite Earle-Sears' best attempts to run a similar campaign, Youngkin's voters failed to show up and vote for a Black woman at the top of the ticket.

Winsome Earle-Sears' candidacy disproves the theory amongst Republicans that the key to making inroads in diverse communities is by simply nominating a nonwhite candidate. The counties that saw the most significant swings toward Democrats were the most heavily Black municipalities in the state. Earle-Sears managed to lose 17% of Youngkin's total votes in Hampton, 18% of his 2021 total in Norfolk, 24% of his vote in Richmond: three of the state's most heavily Black municipalities.

"We don’t need to be fooled by the color of a person’s skin. We need to listen to how they stand on the issues."
-Penny Blue, program director of Red, Wine and Blue Virginia

Spanberger is Saved by Her District

The I-95 corridor between Washington DC and Richmond has held a swing House district for the last decade: Virginia's 7th congressional district. Spanberger has represented VA-7 since winning her first election in 2018 and has never won the district by more than 5 points. Despite consistently sending a Democratic representative to the US House, counties in this district have reliably voted for Republican governors over the same time frame. Spanberger managed to curb this trend with her candidacy as all of the counties in her district swung toward Democrats significantly when compared to 2021, some by as much as 10 points, while also seeing dramatic increases in overall turnout.