Spanberger becomes Virginia’s first female governor

Democrat Abigail Spanberger has been elected governor of Virginia, per the Associated Press. She will be the first woman in the commonwealth’s history to hold the role.

Spanberger was favored against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for the entire campaign season. Still, the race was closely watched by political prognosticators and operatives, as the purple state is thought to give some insight into voter sentiment nationwide.

The former congresswoman ran hammered issues of affordability and Trump’s federal workforce cuts, a kitchen-table issue in the D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia. That careful strategy was rattled after texts from Attorney General candidate Jay Jones leaked. In those messages from 2022, Jones bad-mouthed state-level Republicans. At one point, he shared that if he was given a gun with two bullets and in a room with Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and the former Speaker of Virginia’s state House, he would shoot the GOP speaker twice.

This is a breaking story.