Virginia Election | A female struggle around abortion and the economy

Virginia citizens are expected to elect their state’s first female governor on November 4, choosing between two female candidates. As ballots are rarer the year following a presidential election, the race benefits from special attention. The economy remains a main issue, but access to abortion could also influence the vote.

“We are the last state in the South to have significant enough protections for the right to abortion, and this election will determine the future of abortion in Virginia,” said Amanda Wintersieck, professor in the political science department at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Terminations of pregnancy remain accessible until the end of the second trimester, or around 26 weeks. A contrast with West Virginia and Kentucky, for example, two bordering states where the procedure has been banned, with rare medical exceptions, after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling allowing each state to legislate on the issue.

Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears’ past remarks linking abortion to “genocide” have resurfaced. The 61-year-old current lieutenant governor – the first black woman to hold this post in Virginia – who served in the marines, is trailing in the polls ahead of her Democratic rival, Abigail Spanberger. This 46-year-old woman, a former CIA officer, was a member of the House of Representatives in Washington from 2019 to 2025.

No referendum

Virginia voters won’t vote directly on abortion until next year, at the earliest. To amend the state Constitution, the process is particularly rigorous: The House of Delegates and Senate must first approve the measure twice, with an election separating their votes, before the issue goes to a referendum.

A plan to crystallize the current right to abortion into the state Constitution has already been approved – Democrats currently control both chambers by a slim majority. With all seats in the House of Delegates also up for grabs on November 4, the party must maintain its lead to move forward with its proposal. When the two chambers and the governor come from the same political party, they have more freedom to carry out their political program: the current governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, for example, vetoed bills on reproductive rights.

Special features

Only two states hold gubernatorial elections in the year following a presidential election: New Jersey and Virginia, which is the only state that prohibits consecutive terms for its governor. Some states do not limit the number of terms a governor can serve, consecutive or not.

“There has always been a hesitation in Virginia to put in place a structure that would allow a concentration of powers,” recalls Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, in Virginia.

Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign is receiving more attention than New Jersey’s because of the state’s great divide, illustrated in particular by its legislature: its Senate is made up of 21 Democrats and 19 Republicans; of the 100 seats in the House of Delegates, the Democratic Party has 51. The current governor, a Republican, won 51% of the vote in 2021.

America in “miniature”

“Virginia is, in many ways, a miniature version of America,” Mr. Farnsworth notes.

With its more conservative rural areas. Its more progressive graduate civil servants crossed the Potomac to work in Washington before returning home to the Virginia side. Its libertarian Republicans, more suspicious of Donald Trump than his fervent supporters in other states. Its large socio-economic gaps.

One year before the midterm elections, where control of both chambers in Washington will be at stake, the Virginia elections therefore allow both parties to feel the pulse of voters and test their messages.

The central element of the campaign remains the economy, underlines Stephen Farnsworth. Virginia has some 320,000 federal employees, according to NPR. More than 11,000 civil servants have lost their jobs in recent months. The budgetary paralysis which has lasted for more than three weeks has significant consequences for state workers.

Virginians have systematically chosen, since 1977, a governor who does not belong to the party of the president in office, with one exception.

In addition to the economy and abortion, the campaign also focused on different themes dear to each party. The two candidates also had to answer questions about scandals involving other candidates.

Role

Governors have a role similar to that of the premier of a Canadian province, in a way. Current tensions with the Trump administration have brought to the forefront certain Democratic governors, who accuse the president of not respecting the sharing of powers.

Wintersieck.

“But the courts have also contributed, with recent decisions, to returning responsibilities to the States, as with the ruling on abortion,” she adds.

Other expected decisions could also give governors more latitude on certain issues.