Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

Tag: Virginia governor

Earle-Sears, Spanberger talk biz credentials in Va. Chamber forum appearances

They didn’t meet face-to-face, but the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees for Virginia’s 2025 governor race addressed the same audience Friday at the 2024 Virginia Economic Summit and Forum on International Trade in Richmond.

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, spoke just after 9 a.m. at the event co-sponsored by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, while U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor, addressed the audience in the afternoon.

Earle-Sears focused her remarks on Virginia’s right-to-work status, which prohibits employers from requiring employees to belong to a union, saying that repealing the state’s law “will cost us billions in capital investments and tens of thousands of jobs,” and arguing that Spanberger has not answered questions about her views on the state’s right-to-work policy and could repeal the law as governor.

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Photo by Ash Daniel

“We Virginians deserve a straight answer from Congresswoman Spanberger,” the lieutenant governor said. “Does she support our right-to-work law? I don’t have to tell you that if the effort to repeal right to work is ever successful, it will destroy Virginia’s economy and our workforce in several ways. No more new businesses will be moving to Virginia.”

Spanberger, who completes her third term in Congress at the end of the year, did not address Virginia’s right-to-work legislation or mention Earle-Sears by name in her speech Friday.

According to an October story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Spanberger, through her spokeswoman, declined to say whether she supported or opposed the state’s right-to-work law. In Congress, she joined more than 200 House Democrats in supporting legislation from U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott protecting workers’ right to unionize. Spanberger’s congressional office directed a request for comment to her campaign, which did not immediately respond to an email Friday morning.

Instead, she laid out a list of priorities if elected governor, including investing more money in Virginia’s K-12 schools, its universities and community colleges, site development, and marketing the state’s economic development opportunities. She added that recruiting and retaining more teachers, easing the cost of child care and boosting workforce training efforts were also key priorities for her.

“I consistently hear over and over and over again the issue of … developing and building a skilled workforce,” Spanberger said. “Investing in our workforce shouldn’t start when someone turns 18, and I know this organization understands that.” Although as governor she couldn’t prevent President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs in his second term, Spanberger vowed, “I will work to maintain a stable, predictable business climate for Virginia. As governor, I will work to mitigate as much uncertainty as I can through transparency, collaboration and by working directly with Virginians.”

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine made a surprise appearance at the forum and said that he has spoken with Trump’s transition staffers about Trump’s proposed tariffs, particularly the 25% levees against Canada and Mexico, which he said would be “very, very painful.” Kaine added that tariffs imposed by Trump in his first term impacted agriculture workers in Virginia particularly harshly, and farmers are currently dealing with “low commodity prices. You impose retaliatory tariffs on their products, making it harder to ship them elsewhere.”

Kaine said he would let Spanberger’s campaign respond to Earle-Sears’ comments on right-to-work laws, but added that his fellow Democrat has “been an amazing champion for infrastructure development, for manufacturing and for rural broadband, and those are really powering an awful lot of job announcements in Virginia.”

U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger. Photo by Ash Daniel

Earle-Sears declared her candidacy for governor in September, and in November, Virginia Attorney Gen. Jason Miyares, who was rumored to have been considering a run for the GOP nomination for governor, declared he would instead run for a second term as AG, leaving the path clear for Earle-Sears, who has received Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s endorsement. Youngkin is not permitted to seek a second, consecutive term as governor under state law.

In her speech Friday, Earle-Sears claimed credit as part of the Youngkin administration’s economic development wins since 2022, including Lego Group’s $1 billion project in Chesterfield County, and the launch of more than 10,000 “high-growth, high-wage startups in Virginia.” She also praised the current administration’s streamlining of business regulations and removal of red tape.

On a personal note, Earle-Sears said her entrepreneurial background and her father’s hard work as a Jamaican immigrant to the United States means the right-to-work law in Virginia “is more than a policy for me. When I was an employee, I valued the freedom to decide how to spend my wages that I worked hard for, and as a business owner, I respected that a good worker deserves this same freedom.”

In her speech, Spanberger said that she attended business school in Germany following her graduation from the University of Virginia and fully intended to enter the private sector, but she felt the calling to enter public service following the 9/11 attacks. In the early 2000s, she became a postal inspector and worked on narcotics and money laundering cases, before becoming an operations officer at the CIA. She noted that her experience in Congress has allowed her to hear from many business people and other stakeholders in Virginia.

“Whether you’re a business looking to grow or a locality trying to bring in investment, or a massive employer recruiting and retaining the workforce, you know that your challenges are complex in nature,” Spanberger said. “When I meet with Virginia business leaders and the local chambers, I always ask questions. I hear their concerns, and I take their criticism about how things can or should be improved.”

Spanberger announced her gubernatorial run in 2023 and did not seek re-election to her seat in Congress this year; Democrat Eugene Vindman will succeed her as U.S. representative in the state’s 7th congressional district in January 2025. In April, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced he would drop his bid for governor and instead run for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, sparing the party a primary battle.

Although others could decide to enter the race before next spring’s primaries, as the race appears now, Virginia is poised to elect its first female governor next year.

Previously, the only other woman in Virginia’s history to receive a major party’s gubernatorial nomination was Mary Sue Terry, a Democrat from Martinsville who served two terms as the state’s attorney general. She ran for governor in 1993 but lost that race to Republican George Allen, who later also served as a U.S. senator.

Earle-Sears is also a history maker, as the first woman to serve as Virginia’s lieutenant governor and the first Black woman and immigrant to hold statewide office. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former state delegate, the Jamaican-born Earle-Sears took an unusual path to the Virginia State Capitol in a career that has included owning an appliance, plumbing and electrical company and managing a homeless shelter.

Spanberger has served three terms in Congress, first beating Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Dave Brat in 2018 in a traditionally GOP-leaning district, and maintaining her seat in 2022 after congressional redistricting. She currently represents Fredericksburg, Caroline County and part of Prince William County, and is viewed as a moderate Democrat.

Stoney declares candidacy for Va. governor

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney declared his candidacy for governor Monday, setting up an early contest with U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who announced her own run for the Democratic nomination last month. The general election will take place in November 2025.

If elected, he would be Virginia’s second Black governor, more than 30 years after the historic election of Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

Stoney, who was elected to his first term as mayor in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, filed his paperwork last week for the Democratic gubernatorial race and had spoken about his plans to run earlier in November. In his announcement released Monday morning, Stoney tells his life story. Raised in York County by his father and grandmother in a “working poor family,” Stoney says he was the first member of his family to graduate from high school and then graduated from James Madison University, where he received a degree in public administration and political science.

He served as Virginia’s first Black secretary of the commonwealth under Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who prioritized restoring voting rights to Virginians convicted of felonies. Stoney said in his announcement that he helped restore the right to vote to nearly 200,000 people during his time in McAuliffe’s administration, which ended in 2018. Stoney resigned as secretary after launching his campaign to become Richmond’s mayor in 2016, and became the city’s youngest elected mayor at age 35.

Stoney’s tenure as mayor has been mixed, as major economic development projects he supported failed — the $1.5 billion Navy Hill development, proposed to replace the now-shuttered Richmond Coliseum, was spiked by Richmond City Council in early 2020 after strong community opposition, and a $562 million casino referendum was defeated a second time by Richmond voters last month.

Despite the faltering of those projects, Stoney’s administration has moved forward with the Diamond District, a $2.44 billion project to replace the city’s baseball stadium, home to the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels team, as well as add two hotels, 3,000 residential units, 935,000 square feet of office space, and 195,000 square feet of retail and community space. The new stadium is expected to open in spring 2026, a year after a deadline set by Major League Baseball for all Minor League facilities to meet new standards.

Meanwhile, the city’s Economic Development Authority and the Greater Richmond Convention Center Authority have selected four development teams that will compete to redesign the 9.4-acre downtown site that includes the Coliseum, although the city declared a concert venue will not be built there.

In 2020, Stoney received praise from some quarters for removing Richmond’s Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, following large racial justice protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 in Minneapolis. That summer, Richmond was the site of daily protests, including one in which police tear-gassed a crowd of protesters at the former Robert E. Lee monument.

Stoney, who spoke against police brutality in the days following Floyd’s murder while also standing with Richmond’s police, faced local anger after the tear-gassing incident, which ultimately ended in a civil rights lawsuit against city police. In 2022, the suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

The mayor’s announcement for governor highlights the building of new city schools, creating a budget surplus and reducing the poverty rate by 22% during his tenure. In March, Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building reported that the overall poverty rate in the city was 19.8%, and according to the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey, about 21% of children in Richmond and 21.4% of Latinos were living below the poverty line in 2021, about half the number recorded in 2012.

In addition to serving as mayor and secretary of the commonwealth, Stoney was president of the Democratic Mayors Alliance and served as executive director of the Democratic Party of Virginia. In 2022, he married Brandy Washington, a manager of Altria Group, and in Monday’s announcement, Stoney says they are expecting their first child, a girl, this spring.

Although Spanberger and Stoney are the only two gubernatorial candidates who have officially launched campaigns for 2025, on the Republican side, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney Gen. Jason Miyares are likely candidates. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin is barred from seeking consecutive terms under Virginia law. Spanberger has received significant endorsements since declaring, including from former Gov. Ralph Northam and former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, a member of the state’s more progressive Democratic wing.

 

 

Va. governor’s race coming down to the wire

One week out from Election Day, the Virginia governor’s race remains very close, according to two polls released this week. Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee, has small leads over Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin that are within the surveys’ margins of error.

Released Wednesday morning, Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Civic Leadership’s poll has McAuliffe with 49% of support among likely voters, compared with Youngkin’s 48%, meaning that third-party progressive candidate Princess Blanding’s 1% polling among voters could potentially impact the race. The CNU poll’s margin of error is 3.5%. According to Tuesday’s poll from Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government, McAuliffe has a 41% lead against Youngkin’s 38%, within the poll’s 5.03% margin of error.

Down-ticket Democrats — Attorney General Mark Herring and lieutenant governor candidate Del. Hala Ayala — also have one-point leads over their Republican counterparts, Del. Jason Miyares and Winsome Sears, reports the CNU poll, which has 5% of respondents undecided between Miyares and Herring, and 4% undecided between Ayala and Sears. Similarly, VCU reports only a one point difference between Ayala and Sears, with the Democrat carrying 36% of support. VCU shows Herring with a four-point lead over Miyares, at 39% to 35%.

VCU’s survey shows more voters who are unhappy with either candidate in all three races, as well as a lowering of support for Gov. Ralph Northam. Only 46% approve of the job he is doing, a five-point drop.

“The poll reflects a tightening of the race for the three top offices. The number of voters unhappy with either candidate for governor and the decrease in Northam’s approval rating is noteworthy,” former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said in a statement.

“McAuliffe is facing strong headwinds in a state that has historically selected governors from the party not in the White House and with a Democratic president whose approval rating is underwater,” Wason Center Research Director Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo said in a statement. “Republican voters also appear hungrier for a win and increasingly see a chance to take a statewide race for the first time since 2009.”

CNU’s poll shows that 80% of Republican likely voters are “very enthusiastic” about the election, compared with 65% of Democratic likely voters. That enthusiasm gap is a GOP advantage that has surged nine points since the Wason Center’s Oct. 8 survey.

VCU’s poll surveyed 808 adults in Virginia from Oct. 9 to Oct. 21, and when considering likely voters only, the margin of error was 6.44%. CNU polled 944 likely Virginia voters from Oct. 17 through Oct. 25.

This year’s gubernatorial race far exceeded previous campaign spending. According to the latest campaign finance reports, Youngkin and McAuliffe collectively raised $117 million through Oct. 21, compared to $64.7 million raised by Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie at this stage four years ago, the Virginia Public Access Project reported. A former CEO of The Carlyle Group, Youngkin has spent $20 million so far on his campaign, including $3.5 million in October, bringing his total fundraising to $58.8 million. McAuliffe, a prodigious Democratic Party fundraiser, raised $28 million in campaign contributions this month and has brought in a total of $58.2 million.

McAuliffe has also pulled in several marquee names to support his campaign in recent days, including President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, first lady Jill Biden and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams. Music superstar Pharrell Williams, a Virginia Beach native, and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to appear at a campaign event for McAuliffe on Friday in Norfolk.