Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the governor’s race in Virginia today (Tuesday), defeating Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the Associated Press declared at 7:58 p.m.
Spanberger will succeed Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is not allowed to run for a second consecutive term. Her victory aligns with recent voting patterns in Virginia, which picks its governors the year after a presidential election and tends to elect someone of the opposite party of the president.
Spanberger, a former case officer with the CIA, flipped a U.S. House seat in Northern Virginia in 2018 and retired from Congress in 2024 to run for governor. She will be the state’s first female governor.
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi is also expected to win the lieutenant governor race, defeating Republican John Reid with just under 55% of the vote, as of 8:30 p.m. Succeeding Earle-Sears, Hashmi will be the first Muslim woman to hold a statewide office in the U.S.
The attorney general contest remains too close to call, though Democrat Jay Jones is currently edging out incumbent Jason Miyares with 51.8% of the vote, despite a late-breaking controversy involving years-old violent text messages. Miyares has 47.8% of the vote, according to initial returns from the Virginia Department of Elections.
Also at stake in today’s election is control of the Virginia House of Delegates. As of 8:30 p.m., Democrats have comfortable leads in all 15 districts in Fairfax County.
Turnout in Fairfax County is on track to be match the 60% reported in the last gubernatorial election in 2021, Fairfax County Office of Elections worker Sean Stewart says, though higher-than-expected early voting numbers suggest a potential, if slight increase.
“Our expectation may be that we might see a little bit of a surge,” Stewart told FFXnow. “… For instance, on our last day of early voting, which was this past Saturday, we were right at 19,000-and-change voters, which is only about 1,000 less than what we had the last day of early voting in the presidential election in 2024.”
In the final update before polls closed at 7 p.m., the county reported that 20.1% of registered voters had cast a ballot today, joining a 23.9% turnout for both in-person and by-mail early voting to bring the total turnout as of 3 p.m. to roughly 45% or 808,000 voters.
Results updated live for the statewide races and all contested Fairfax County delegate races can be seen below, courtesy of the Associated Press. Charniele Herring and Rozia Henson Jr., both Democrats, didn’t face any challengers en route to their reelections to the 4th and 19th districts, respectively.
