Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic former U.S. representative, won the 2025 Virginia governor’s race, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by a decisive margin.

Quick Scoop: Who’s “Winning” Now?

  • The race is over: major outlets and official result summaries list Abigail Spanberger as the winner of the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election.
  • She defeated Winsome Earle-Sears by more than 15 percentage points statewide, a landslide by recent Virginia standards.
  • Spanberger is set to serve as Virginia’s first woman governor, a historic first for the commonwealth.

In other words, if you’re asking “who is winning the governor race in Virginia” right now, the answer is that the race has concluded and Abigail Spanberger has already won.

What The Final Results Looked Like

  • The general election was held on November 4, 2025, with Spanberger as the Democratic nominee and Earle-Sears as the Republican nominee.
  • Final tallies show Spanberger ahead by roughly 527,000 votes, giving her the largest gubernatorial margin in Virginia since 2009 and the biggest Democratic margin since 1961.
  • Multiple news organizations, including NBC and Virginia outlets, projected and reported Spanberger as the winner on election night.

Why This Race Was A Big Deal

  • Spanberger’s victory continued Virginia’s pattern of electing a governor from the opposite party of the sitting first‑term president, a long-running quirk in the state’s politics.
  • Analysts described her win as a strong signal going into the 2026 midterms, noting that Democrats swept the statewide offices and maintained control of the legislature.
  • Her campaign leaned heavily on economic themes and cost-of-living concerns, which observers say helped her outperform pre-election polling expectations.

Polls vs. Final Outcome

  • Earlier in 2025, polling consistently showed Spanberger leading Earle-Sears, often by high single digits or low double digits among registered voters.
  • Those polls suggested an advantage for Democrats but did not fully capture the eventual 15‑plus‑point landslide margin.
  • Commentators later pointed to turnout, economic messaging, and Democratic enthusiasm as key reasons the final result overshot many poll estimates.

Current Status (As Of Early 2026)

  • Spanberger is the governor‑elect and scheduled to be sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor in January 2026.
  • Earle-Sears returns to private life after serving as lieutenant governor, while Democrats now control the top statewide offices.
  • Any “who is winning” forum chatter you see now is mostly post‑game analysis, since the actual election is already decided.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.