ARLINGTON, Virginia — Democrats secured victories in key races in Virginia on Nov. 4. 

Abigail Spanberger, 46, won the governor’s race and will be the first woman to enter the state’s Executive Mansion in the role. She defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, 61.

And Jay Jones, 36, overcame a scandal involving violent text messages. He defeated Republican Jason Miyares, 49, to win the contest to become Virginia’s next attorney general. Jones will be the state’s first Black attorney general.

For Norfolk resident Jay Boone, it was impossible to observe the governor’s race and miss the history in the making for women.

“I think that it’s powerful for people to be able to connect and see that it’s not just somebody of one particular gender who can represent us,” Boone, 39, the founder of Keeping Us Secure and Prosperous, a nonprofit organization that focuses on emergency food and preparedness, told Capital B. “We don’t have to stay where we’ve been before.”

But while gender representation matters, residents say that what will matter even more is how the next governor uses her position to help Virginians navigate the powerful political headwinds from the Trump administration, as federal cuts and the government shutdown persist.

Fifty-one women, in 32 states, have served as governor, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. Of those, 31 have been Democrats, and 20 have been Republicans. (Three have served in Puerto Rico, and one is serving in Guam.) A Black woman has never been elected governor, though some — such as Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost Georgia’s 2018 governor’s contest — have gotten close.

Earle-Sears, the state’s current lieutenant governor, has already made some history: She’s the first Black woman to hold a statewide office in Virginia.

The historic nature of the Virginia race was subtly raised on Saturday, when the country’s first Black president stumped for Spanberger.

At Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Barack Obama praised Spanberger’s political vision to the crowd of some 7,000 people.

“Abigail has real, practical plans to grow the economy and strengthen Virginia schools and lower the cost of everything from housing to health care to energy,” Obama said. “And she’s willing to reach across the aisle to make it happen. She’s shown that she can do it. Abigail is ranked as the most bipartisan member of Congress from the commonwealth — she has had bills signed into law by both President [Donald] Trump and President [Joe] Biden.”

Trump had softly praised Earle-Sears — he said that “the Republican candidate is very good” and “the Democrat [sic] candidate is a disaster” — but he had seemed to withhold a more full-throated endorsement.

A recent poll from the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University found that Spanberger’s momentum was driven partly by strong Black voter support: 84% to 6%.

Tavorise Marks — a disabled U.S. Army veteran and small-business owner in Chester — thinks that Earle-Sears would have had more Black voter support if she hadn’t so closely aligned herself with the president’s MAGA agenda.

“There were a lot of Black voters who were upset about Terry McAuliffe running for a second chance at governorship over two qualified women, Jennifer McClellan and Jennifer Carroll Foy,” Marks, 42, previously told Capital B. “Either one of those women would have been not only the first female governor of Virginia but also the first Black female governor in the country.”

A governor to lead in crisis

As important as gender representation is, however, it isn’t everything, said Sequoia Ross, 48, an eighth grade English teacher living in Amelia County: Even more critical is the policy that the next governor will champion to help vulnerable communities.

“I pride myself on being a very intelligent woman,” she told Capital B, explaining that it annoyed her that anyone might think that she would vote for a candidate simply because that person is a Black woman.

“We have a saying: All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk,” Ross said. “That means that just because somebody looks like us, doesn’t mean that they’re with us. And Earle-Sears is not one of us.”

As an educator, Ross was deeply concerned by the lieutenant governor’s support for an administration that has actively sought to sanitize Black history both in schools and in public spaces such as national parks.

Boone believes that the average Virginian is thinking, first and foremost, about access to their everyday needs, like food. She works in the food and sustainability space, and has noticed that lines at pantries have become “exceptionally longer” in recent weeks, as the government shutdown drags on.

Her volunteers also have increasingly been fired and furloughed federal employees, who now have more time on their hands and are leaving with food because they’re struggling to make ends meet, she added.

The shutdown is on track to become the longest in U.S. history this week. Trump said on Saturday that he “won’t be extorted” by Democratic lawmakers who want a funding measure that will continue Affordable Care Act subsidies and reverse Republicans’ recent Medicaid slashing. Because of the shutdown, it remains unclear whether the more than 40 million Americans who need federal food assistance will receive it.

The shutdown and the slashing of federal jobs have dealt a heavy blow to Virginia. Black Americans account for approximately 26% of the federal workforce in the state, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and make up around 18% of the total state population,

On the campaign trail, Spanberger and Earle-Sears sparred over the chaos plaguing the federal government. Earle-Sears said during the governor’s debate in October that her rival was “playing political football with federal workers” by backing Democratic lawmakers’ calls for increasing access to health care. Meanwhile, Spanberger highlighted Earle-Sears’ support for federal cuts, which the lieutenant governor has claimed, without evidence, will root out fraud.

Another issue that took center stage in the race was LGBTQ rights. The Trump administration has threatened federal funding for Virginia public schools over their policies regarding gender identity. Spanberger voiced support for LGBTQ rights, while Earle-Sears noted that she’s “morally opposed” to things such as marriage equality.

Spanberger shared some of Ross and Boone’s thoughts, underscoring that the history Virginians were making is meaningful, even if it isn’t the be-all and end-all.

“Where the history element of it [the election] really matters is the fact that it matters to other people,” Spanberger, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms, told Capital B. “I’ve had many women much older than me who have said, ‘I’m so glad that I’ve lived to see a woman governor elected in Virginia.’ And lots of little kids, particularly little girls, think that it’s so cool that we’re going to have a woman governor.”

Spanberger added that, ultimately, her attention is on addressing the issues that are most important to residents: “That’s the weight of this election that I feel,” she said.

Earle-Sears’ campaign team did not respond to multiple interview requests from Capital B.

An Emerson College/The Hill poll released on Sunday showed that Spanberger led Earle-Sears by 11 percentage points — 55% to 43%. But to Boone, the real test is what comes after Virginia’s history-making election.

“The federal government is pushing everything to states’ rights, so we need strong leadership to help us circumvent anything happening on the federal level,” she said. “More than anything, Virginians want someone who can guide them through the next three years.”

This story has been updated.