Richmond, Va. (AP) – Just a few weeks after the former Member of Abigail Spanberger had finally left the US house, she strolled to the ground of another political chamber: the Virginia House of Delegates. The three -term congressor, who was now competing for the next governor of the state, rubbed the elbows with other Democrats and kept someone’s baby on their hip, a not so subtle memory that nationwide elections are emerging in the Commonwealth this year.
“Shouldn’t you knock on the doors or something?” The spokesman for the Democratic House, Don Scott, teased Spanberger, who had built up the infant nephew of a democratic legislator a few minutes earlier. The politicians shared a laugh.
For many US voters who are exhausted by the 2024 elections, the early months of 2025 feel like a time to move away from politics. But the next campaign season has already started in Virginia – where the governor and all 100 house members will soon be on the ballot – and the contours of a closely observed governor race take shape. While Spanberger posed for photos and waved the Virginians who crossed the Capitol. -The competition between her and Spanberger.
This is a scenario that even from neutral observers in Virginia and one that would give the state its first governor. Both want the successor to the Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, who is constrained.
“My opponent said that she was running through the success of a Republican administration,” said Earlesears about Spanberger that day. “Well, why should we change the teams?”
Together with New Jersey, Virginia is one of two federal states, which conducts nationwide races, including the governor’s competition, in the year after a presidential election and will probably draw attention to politicos across the country.
The races outside of the year are often seen as early barometers of voters who go on the way with intermediate elections. This applies in particular to Virginia, which has selected both Democrats and Republicans for its top offices in recent years, and this year’s competitions will take place with Republicans in full about the power levers in the nearby Washington.
In November, Earle-Sears and Spanberger are widely regarded as the likely candidates of their parties, although others, such as the democratic US representative Bobby Scott, discussed the primary race in June. Scott also visited the Statehouse on Friday.
Some of the financial foundations for the competition have already been laid. Spanberger, which started its campaign at the end of 2023, had around 6.5 million US dollars on the bank last month last month, as the referee public access project assumes. Earlesears, who announced her candidacy in September, had more than $ 2 million in her war treasury.
Nevertheless, the campaigns heat up at a time when the voters withdraw from politics. A research survey for Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs carried out at the beginning of December showed that around 7 out of 10 Democrats indicate that they canceled from political news. About 6 out of 10 Republicans also say that they had the need to take some time, and the proportion for independent is similar.
But the leading candidates did not deter these figures.
Earle-Sears, a marine veteran who immigrated to the United States as a child from Jamaica, hopes to build on her success as governor of Leutnant and that of the conservative management of Youngkin. She spent a enormous part of January in the state capital, in news conferences and in Republican Caucus presentations and praised the protection “right to work” in Virginia, a topic that has become fundamental in her offer for Virginia’s Executive Mansion. Such laws prohibit unions with collective bargaining that cause employees to join in and water down the power of organized workers.
“It was a long time ago that we had a governor of Leutnant who was ready to wade on material political questions,” said Virginia, Mark Obenthain’s Republican Senator, who approved Earle-Sears recently. “We have absolutely a leader in the Lieutenant Gouvenirer winner.”
Spanberger, a former CIA operator who is no longer connected with her responsibilities of the congress, has taken up steam along the campaign path and stopped in Richmond and Southwestern Virginia in the last two weeks. She has presented herself as a cross -party politician who will listen to all Virginians so that she can concentrate on what interests her.
At a weapon reform before the Statehouse in the early this month, Spanberger wiped the tears when she spoke of the toll in Virginia and in the USA. Lawyers and volunteers from the weapon control held posters and wore T-shirts who honor the T-shirts killed in shootings.
“Our current governor has suggestions, non -partisan laws that would have made progress in some of these questions that our Commonwealth would have made a safer place to live, work and upbringing a family,” said Spanberger and referred to Youngkin’s decision, 30 to Veto 30 to Veto 30 democratically guided firearms.
Spanberger took the air when the crowd cheered: “We have to make a change,” she said. “Now I’m running for the governor.”
On the other side of the street, Virginians, who wore similar red dresses, gathered around Earle-Sears, who, when they were chosen, become not just the first governor, but the first black woman who paused the office. In the lobby of the Marble floor of the Attorney General, she spoke of the participation in women’s sports teams to support trans-athletes. The legislation that the Republican legislator supported in the democratically guided legislative legislature of Virginia would fail the following week in a Senate Committee.
When the governor of Lieutenant stood side by side with Youngkin and Virginia General Jason Miyares, she collected part of the state’s conservative basis and portrayed as a protector and as an advocate of Republican values.
“My policy is: Do not make my life more difficult than it already is,” said Earle-Sears and later added: “Common sense must prevail. We can’t say enough because we don’t see enough of it. “
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Olivia Diaz is a member of the Corps for the “Associated Press/Report” initiative for America Statehouse News. The report for America is a non -profit National Service program that reports journalists in local news editorial offices on hidden topics.
