Democrats sweep Virginia’s statewide elections, regaining full control of the executive branch

In the Democratic primary, Abigail Spanberger won the governor’s race, Ghazala Hashmi won the lieutenant governor race, and Jay Jones emerged as the next attorney general. ((Spanberger photo: Charlotte Rene Woods, Hashmi photo:

Democrats held a statewide sweep in Virginia on Tuesday night as former Republican U.S. Abigail Spanberger defeated Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for governor Sen. Ghazali Hashmi, R-Richmond, overtook conservative talk show host John Reid in the lieutenant governor race and former state delegate Jay Jones fired incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares in a contest overshadowed by controversy.

According to the Associated Press and unofficial data from the Virginia Department of Elections, as of 10:10 p.m., Spanberger won with 55% of the vote to 44.8%, Hashmi 53.2% to 46.6% and Jones edged Miyares 52.2% to 47.4%.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger wins the Virginia governor’s race

The Democratic victories were a acute rebuke to Virginia’s Republican establishment, which has controlled the executive branch since Gov. Glenn Youngkin was elected in 2021. After years of tight statewide races and shifting partisan sentiment, voters returned full Democratic control of all three statewide offices for the first time since 2017.

Spanberger, a former three-term congresswoman from Henrico County, has been guided by a message of stability and moderation, emphasizing economic security, reproductive rights and a pragmatic governing style.

“It’s a big deal that the girls and young women I met on the campaign trail now know with certainty that they can achieve anything,” Spanberger said in her victory speech, reflecting on making history as Virginiafirst woman governor.

Earle-Sears, a conservative firebrand and the state’s first Black woman lieutenant governor, built on the cultural themes and parental rights rhetoric that helped define the GOP’s earlier resurgence. But her alliance with President Donald Trump and friction with members of her own party over abortion and voting rules have weakened her mutual appeal.

“I just called Abigail and she didn’t pick up,” Earle-Sears said during a meeting with supporters in Leesburg. “I left her a voicemail and asked her to consider all of us Virginians, to represent all of us, not just some of us. I wish her luck. If she succeeds, Virginia will succeed, that’s what I wish for her.”

Hashmi, a state senator from Richmond and the first Muslim woman elected to the General Assembly, cast her campaign as a moral counterpoint to GOP orders under Reid, a Richmond radio host whose campaign combined populist outrage with an anti-establishment streak.

“Virginia has chosen leadership that lifts people up, not puts them down. Together, we have proven that in Virginia, a child’s name, a family’s personal struggles, and a community’s identity are not barriers to belonging,” Hashmi said in a statement after the winner was announced.

Reid entered the race under a cloud of controversy press reports revealed a collection of senior Tumblr posts containing inflammatory and racially charged language, prompting Youngkin to publicly call on him to end his campaign in the spring. Episode divided Republicans just months before the primaries, as party leaders scrambled to contain the fallout from the election.

Reid’s decision for later conduct a “debate” against Hashmi’s AI-generated version – after she refused to share the stage with him – drew ridicule from Democrats and independents alike, underscoring how much the GOP mandate changed the message in the final stages.

And in the attorney general race, Jones overcame his own baggage – the storm was over offensive text messages sent in 2022, and those were released in the fall — to narrowly unseat Miyares, a Republican who gained notoriety as one of the party’s most aggressive critics of Virginia universities and prosecutors.

“My ancestors were slaves,” Jones said after his victory. “My grandfather was a civil rights pioneer who stood up to Jim Crow. My father, my mother, my uncles and my aunts survived segregation so that I can stand here before you today.”

This year’s races played out against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and social policy tensions that have defined much of the 2025 cycle. Virginia’s exposure to federal employment – more than 140,000 civilian jobs tied directly to Washington – has made the state particularly sensitive to federal layoffs and threats of business shutdowns amid the Trump administration’s cost-cutting pressures.

Spanberger and other Democrats have picked up on that concern, warning that further federal spending cuts could threaten both household stability and the state’s long-term revenue base. In February in Virginia lawmakers were hesitant to protect the state’s economy from what they saw as a potential federal labor crisis.

Access to health care, reproductive rights and Medicaid funding also loomed vast.

Hospital administrators warned that hundreds of thousands of Virginians may lose coverage if federal matching funds were reduced. And when Congress began flirting with another shutdown in September, hospitals have prepared for the fallout.

Spanberger, who consistently led in the polls throughout the summer he focused these issues around “core competencies and care.” Even though the race tightened in the final stretch before the election, VCU survey he found Spanberger ahead of Earle-Sears outside the margin of error.

The most explosive storyline of this series occurred in the attorney general race, when text messages from Jones surfaced in early October in which he appeared to fantasize about violence against the Republican House speaker and his family. Revelations shook up Virginia’s political worldleading even some Democrats to wonder whether he can remain profitable.

Republicans had hoped the scandal would put an end to the entire Democratic ticket, with Earle-Sears sharply questioning Spanberger’s support for Jones during the only gubernatorial candidate debate debate.

But Jones weathered the storm, repeatedly apologizing and raising the same core issues that dominated his gubernatorial bid. His debate with Miyares at the University of Richmond underlined the stark tone of the campaign in which the two men argued about responsibility and integrity.

Hashmi’s race with Reid had its own spectacle. Reid’s late-season stunts — including the “artificial intelligence debate” — created viral moments but failed to expand his coalition beyond conservative talk radio listeners.

Hashmi continued to broadcast messages on reproductive rights and equality in the classroom, topics that resonated with suburban voters in Richmond and Northern Virginia.

Meanwhile, Earle-Sears sought to distance herself from Trump’s renewed political shadow and the intraparty feuds that came to delicate after the spring resignation of Republican lieutenant governor candidate Reid’s predecessor. The so-called “Unity Rally” by Republicans in Vienna in July did little to repair the damage.

Democrats benefited from a late-cycle recovery from the Democratic National Committee he poured out six figures in Virginia’s get-out-the-vote effort, which will lend a hand dampen GOP enthusiasm and ensure high turnout in vote-rich suburbs.

Republicans invested heavily in the Southside and Southwest Virginia, but struggled to match Democrats in the suburbs – particularly in Henrico, Loudoun and Virginia Beach, where abortion rights and federal job security prevailed.

These results will give Virginia Democrats full control of the state’s highest offices for the first time in four years and potentially change the political map ahead of the 2026 congressional elections.

Spanberger’s victory gives Democrats an experienced executive with national security credentials and bipartisan appeal, while Hashmi’s historic victory breaks another glass ceiling in a state where diverse candidates are constantly redefining the political mainstream. And Jones’ return – despite his mistakes – cements a generational change in the party’s ranks.

Spanberger’s incoming administration faces immediate tests, from dealing with the economic fallout from federal job losses and protecting health care funding to managing the political tension between booming Northern Virginia suburbs and rural regions fearful of being left behind.

For Republicans, Tuesday’s results provide grounds for reckoning.

The party, once buoyed by Youngkin’s 2021 success and Earle-Sears’ barrier-breaking rise, is now losing power statewide and searching for a message that will resonate beyond its conservative base.

Virginia Mercury reporters Nathaniel Cline, Charlotte Rene Woods and Shannon Heckt contributed to this story.