History was made in Virginia Tuesday as the commonwealth elected its first woman governor — Democrat Abigail Spanberger.
She wasted little time getting to work, appointing a chief of staff and transition team Wednesday.
She won over the Republican candidate, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by almost 14 percentage points, the largest margin for a Democrat in nearly 65 years.
Not only did Democrats win the two other statewide races on the ballot, but they also expanded their majority in the House of Delegates, giving them 64 seats in January. It’s their largest majority since the late 1980s.
“Now she can afford to lose seven, eight Democratic votes and still get everything she wants passed,” said Chapman Rackaway, professor and political science chair at Radford University. “So, she will get a lot more leeway to decide if she wants to govern the same way she campaigned, or does she perhaps want to be a little bit more progressive.”
For instance, it appears almost certain Democrats will continue their push for a constitutional amendment on redistricting in January.
Rackaway said Republicans faced strong headwinds in the race, including some discontent within the party with the top of the ticket and the unpopularity among voters of the Trump administration’s policies as well as the government shutdown.
In a news conference Wednesday morning, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said while he believed Virginians generally “thoroughly supported” his administration’s policies in Richmond, he agreed the shutdown played a major role in the results.
“We have 330,000 government workers here that weren’t getting paid. That is a real challenge heading into an election,” he said.
Youngkin said there’s still work to be done in the final two months of his administration, and he is committed to a smooth transition in January.