The clearing of the Democratic field for Virginia Governor in 2025 has been swift and brutal, so much to the point that Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) may not face any competition at all. Her main competition, term-limited mayor Levar Stoney (D-VA), has recently announced his intention to run for Lieutenant Governor instead of Governor given the polling showing Spanberger with a double-digit lead and the lack of major candidates running in the LG race. This comes as the Republicans will have to find a new Lieutenant Governor if Winsome Sears (R-VA) decides to run for the open gubernatorial spot instead of seeking re-election to her current post. This all raises the question of what Republicans plan to do about the challenging nature of the 2025 elections given that they will likely face two, if not three, serious challengers for the statewide executive positions they currently hold.
To underscore how much of a drudge the gubernatorial race would have been for Stoney’s campaign, his own internal polling was showing him losing to Spanberger by 30% with barely enough undecideds that he’d have to win over to narrowly defeat her. That would be the best-case scenario. The most likely scenario would’ve been a disastrous underperformance that would’ve cast doubt on Stoney’s electoral prospects in the future.
With Virginia governors limited to a single term before having to leave office, Stoney will theoretically only need to wait four years for Spanberger to get her moment in the sun and then get his turn. This is unless the state legislature grants her the ability to run for another term by changing the state’s law, but that comes with the ugly caveat for state legislators, especially ambitious ones on the Democratic side, that they might not become Governor if that happens. Thus, the interests of party backbenchers not wanting Republicans to get control of the office will collide with the personal interests of the politicians who would be harmed by having to wait for a Governor to conclude a possible eight years of governance. Even worse, imagine a Terry McAuliffe scenario where he tries a return after he’s term-limited the first time and the state only ever have two different governors in the course of about two and a half decades versus having potentially six one-term governors.
As for Republicans who could run for the seat, there haven’t been any major names to announce so far, but there is one that has been mentioned as persona non grata in party circles: Amanda Chase (R-VA). Having lost her primary off of the back of running as extreme a candidacy as possible and then threatening an independent bid to drag her Republican successor to defeat, no one is or will be excited for her to run for anything in the future owing to her brand of politics. The party has been successful in building up their roster of viable statewide candidates again and could theoretically pull off another statewide win, but will need to choose a strong candidate versus settling for an average candidate against someone with the name recognition and deep pockets as Stoney.
The one disadvantage that Democrats are likely dreading is the impact that Fairfax County District Attorney Steve Descano could have on the Attorney General race if he becomes the party nominee. While the party will likely prefer Jay Jones as the consensus nominee from the center, his part of the vote coming from the African-American and rural Democratic vote along with Richmond and Southern Virginia is being split with Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor. This is as Descano is virtually unopposed in galvanizing his base in heavily populated and suburban Fairfax County and surrounding NOVA counties. Between Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun, Arlington, and Alexandria counties, that constitutes hundreds of thousands of pro-Descano votes that will have to be offset by Jones while his vote is currently split downstate. Given that Descano is known for being an underperformer owing to his progressive politics, that could drag the Democratic ticket down having someone as polarizing as him on the same ticket as Spanberger and Stoney. Nevertheless, we’ll see what happens closer to the actual election to see if Jones can consolidate the votes needed to balance out the NOVA progressives.
The news of Stoney running for LG also comes as state senator Aaron Rouse, who won a special election for Virginia Senate, decided to jump into the race this week on the Democratic side.
2025 Virginia Attorney General election – Wikipedia
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