RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Republican Winsome Earle-Sears and Democrat Abigail Spanberger will debate their competing visions for Virginia in the state’s gubernatorial race Thursday. And every woman seems to have the same goal: to blame her opponent for supporting the chaos in Washington.
Virginia is one of two states that elect governors in November, and her election is often seen as a marker for the party in power across the Potomac River ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Washington politics are particularly relevant in Virginia this year as President Donald Trump’s federal workforce cuts and the current government shutdown in Congress are having an outsized impact in a state full of federal workers and military personnel.
Thursday marks the first in-person debate between Spanberger and Earle-Sears after months of criticizing each other from afar.
Virginia has elected leaders of both parties in recent years. In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe in the governor’s race. State Democrats narrowly regained full control of the Legislature in the 2023 elections.
Here’s what to look for during the debate at Norfolk State University:
A race in the shadow of Trump
Trump is not on the ballot in Virginia next month. However, the Republican president is expected to play a central role in the debate.
Spanberger often mentions Trump and Earle-Sears in the same breath. Just last week, Spanberger’s campaign issued a press release saying that Earle-Sears was “not taking seriously the economic impact of Trump’s layoffs in Virginia.”
However, Earle-Sears and other Republicans tend to ignore Trump’s name. They want to capitalize on his popularity among Republicans without incurring the ire of Virginians who don’t like him.
Earle-Sears has spoken favorably of the president and invited him to the state to campaign for her. She has also refused to condemn his cuts to federal staffing earlier this year. When the opportunity arose, she declined in a television interview to tell Trump to stop shooting during the shutdown.
Trump did not directly support Earle-Sears in the race. Although he visited Virginia twice last week, he ignored the Republican gubernatorial candidate.
The shutdown
The showdown over the shutdown is likely to last through Thursday night and beyond.
It’s been nine days since Congress failed to approve a funding extension, and Democrats and Republicans are blaming their rivals – even in a state-level race.
On Thursday, Spanberger will have the opportunity to portray Earle-Sears as a candidate incapable of standing up to Trump. The Democrat has already indicated that the Republican president’s threats of mass layoffs would have a significant impact on Virginia, home to at least about 315,000 federal workers.
Earle-Sears will likely try to tie her Democratic opponent to the federal shutdown after Congress failed to fund the government. Democrats, who have consistently voted against a short-term spending measure, have said they will vote for it only if Congress extends health care subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
Earle-Sears has repeatedly publicly called for her opponent to ask Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats, to vote for the spending bill.
Culture Wars vs. Wallets
A key to the debate will be what the candidates want to talk about.
Earle-Sears wants to keep transgender youth out of school sports and bathrooms. Spanberger would rather talk about keeping Virginia affordable.
Earle-Sears has pushed strenuous for stricter laws governing the participation of transgender girls in Virginia’s public education systems, flooding the airwaves with ads focused on the cultural divide that helped Trump win the presidency last fall.
Spanberger was a leader primarily on kitchen table issues — jobs, cost of living, health care prices.
Each candidate addressed her opponent’s concerns with some reserve. Earle-Sears said maintaining the Youngkin administration’s business successes is critical to her, although she did not criticize Trump’s role in cutting jobs across the state.
Spanberger has said she supports all children, but she failed to highlight her support specifically for trans children.
Questions any candidate could ask
Both candidates could be asked to push back against criticism that has surfaced during the race.
Earle-Sears’ campaign had to answer questions after Youngkin unsuccessfully asked Republican John Reid to drop out of the race for lieutenant governor in connection with a social media account containing explicit photos.
But Reid isn’t the only candidate the Republican governor has called on to drop out of the race. Last week, The National Review published a report revealing that Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general in 2022, sent text messages suggesting that the former Republican House speaker had “taken two bullets in the head.”
Republicans across the US, including Trump and Earle-Sears, called on Jones to quit because of his violent rhetoric. Spanberger condemned the text messages but did not call for his resignation despite growing pressure. Jones apologized.
The debate comes at a time when threats of political violence have increased across the country following the shooting deaths of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and former Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.
