Less than a week after Democrats in Virginia won decisive victories in the commonwealth’s legislature — holding on to their majority in the Senate and retaking the House of Delegates — Rep. Abigail Spanberger announced that she is launching a bid for governor in 2025.
Spanberger, 44, a former CIA officer, will not seek reelection to Congress in order to focus on her gubernatorial bid, vacating a swing district that she won in a hard-fought 2018 campaign against Tea Party Republican Rep. Dave Bratt, the incumbent, and has held on to ever since.
“The greatest honor of my life has been to represent Virginians in the U.S. House,” she said in a statement. “Today, I am proud to announce that I will be working hard to gain the support and trust of all Virginians to continue this service as the next Governor of Virginia.”
If Spanberger wins, her victory would be a historic one: She would be Virginia’s first female governor.
“Virginia is where I grew up, where I am raising my own family and where I intend to build a stronger future for the next generation of Virginians,” Spanberger, who was born in New Jersey, said.
Spanberger’s announcement follows last week’s big night for Virginia Democrats. In 2021, Gov. Glenn Youngkin scored an upset electoral victory, sweeping Republicans to the top three roles in the commonwealth’s government as well as control of the House of Delegates. Youngkin hoped for a GOP sweep of the legislature to advance his conservative legislative agenda — and potentially bolster a long-shot 2024 presidential bid — but Democrats thwarted his ambitions by not only retaining the Senate, but winning the House of Delegates.
In an announcement video, titled “What Matters Most,” Spanberger took a thinly veiled shot at Youngkin, who cannot run for a second term under the commonwealth’s constitution, but will no doubt loom large over the 2025 campaign.
“Our country and our commonwealth are facing fundamental threats to our rights, our freedoms, and to our democracy,” Spanberger said. "While some politicians in Richmond focus on banning abortion and books, what they’re not doing is helping people.”
Spanberger is the first candidate to officially enter the race, though Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney has reportedly started building a campaign team ahead of an expected gubernatorial bid, according to POLITICO. A rising star among Virginia Democrats, Stoney, 42, worked for Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign and was appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia before running for Mayor of Richmond in 2016.
On the Republican side, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares could be contenders, though no GOP candidates have declared for the race.
“The last thing Virginia needs is another far left DC politician,” Miyares wrote on X, formerly Twitter, about Spanberger’s announcement, adding: “Virginia has made remarkable strides the past two years bringing common sense, conservative leadership to Richmond.”
The earliness of Spanberger’s announcement — roughly two years from the election — gives Democrats time to find a candidate to replace her seat in the House, a district that could prove crucial in control of the chamber. But Republicans are celebrating Spanberger’s departure as an opportunity for a pickup in the House.
“Swing-seat Democrats are scrambling for the exits,” the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, wrote on social media. “Republicans will flip this seat.”
Cook Political Report on Monday listed her district — which is just south of the nation’s capital and encompasses Culpeper and Fredericksburg — as “Lean Democrat,” a slightly rightward shift from “Likely Democrat” given that the incumbent, Spanberger, is not running, but gave Democrats the edge because of high turnout in a presidential election year in a district President Joe Biden won by seven points.