With just days until Virginians head to the polls, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears have been making their cases for why they should be elected as the next governor of the commonwealth.
The Democratic nominee, Spanberger, is the leading candidate with most polls showing her ahead by 10 percentage points.
The Republican nominee, Earle-Sears, was elected to office with Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) in 2021.
The vacant governorship has resulted from the state constitution barring governors from serving consecutive terms, meaning that Youngkin cannot run for reelection.
Spanberger is running on a platform of repealing Virginia’s car tax, which treats cars as property and levies annual charges on them, protecting federal workers from layoffs and terminations by the U.S. Government, as well as implementing her economic plan.
“I am motivated by the idea that if ever there is a little girl anywhere who wants to move home to Virginia, I want there to be a house that her family can afford in the community they want to live in,” said Spanberger at an Oct. 28 rally.
“I want there to be jobs available to her parents, where they can provide for their family.
“I want that little girl to have a school where she is safe within its walls, where her teachers are well-paid and well-respected, where the air she breathes is clean and the water she drinks is fresh, where she knows that as she grows up, her rights will be respected.”
Earle-Sears, by contrast, is running on social issues such as public safety and preventing transgender participation in women’s sports events in public schools.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Spanberger campaign for comment.
Earle-Sears cited Spanberger voting against the Laken Riley Act when she was a member of Congress.
The law requires detention of illegal immigrants who commit crimes such as theft, burglary, murder, shoplifting, or assaulting a law enforcement officer.
It was named for Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia who was murdered in 2024 by an illegal immigrant, who was found guilty and is serving a life sentence.
Simultaneously, an election for lieutenant governor is underway.
State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee, is running against radio broadcaster John Reid, the Republican nominee.
Polls indicate that Hashmi leads Reid by a similar margin to Spanberger’s lead over Sears, and she recently declined to appear with him in a general election debate.
The gubernatorial race is not the only heated contest in the commonwealth.
The attorney general contest between incumbent Republican Jason Miyares and Democrat Jay Jones has come into the spotlight since the revelation that Jones suggested shooting political opponent and former Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert.
During a debate on Oct. 16, Jones apologized to Gilbert.
“Let me be very clear: I am ashamed, I am embarrassed, and I am sorry. I am sorry to Speaker Gilbert, I am sorry to his family, and I am sorry to every single Virginian,” he said.
The incumbent Republican attorney general, Jason Miyares, has said that Jones is unfit to lead.
“Jay Jones is a criminal first, victim last, politician,” he said.
“Jay Jones has not had the experience or the judgment to serve as the top prosecutor.”
The latest polls mostly show Miyares with a narrow lead. A Washington Post poll shows Miyares and Jones tied at 46 percent.
During his time as attorney general, Miyares secured more than $1 billion in settlements from pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors for their alleged role in the opioid crisis, according to his campaign website.
He also investigated how Loudoun County Public Schools allowed someone to sexually assault two students across two schools.
Miyares has made it a priority to prosecute violent crime, according to his campaign website.
Jones’s platform includes campaigning for abortion access, protecting civil and constitutional rights, and fighting the Trump administration.
