(RICHMOND, Va.) — The Republican candidate has a familiar closing message in the Virginia gubernatorial race.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign spent millions of dollars on ads attacking Democratic nominee and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger for her stance on transgender rights in Virginia schools.
One ad claims Spanberger supports “men in girls’ locker rooms,” and closes with the notion that “Abigail Spanberger is for they/them, not us” — a direct echo of an ad the Trump campaign used against Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
The 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4. The incumbent Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, assumed office in 2022 and is ineligible to run for re-election.
The debate over trans rights also played a role in Youngkin’s 2021 campaign. Youngkin has rolled back accommodations for trans students and increased parental notification requirements during his time in office.
Nicole Neily, president and founder of the nonprofit Defending Education, said that the focus on this issue in Virginia began with Youngkin’s race, which he won by championing parental rights in Virginia schools.
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“This is an issue that has been on the radar of parents across Virginia,” Neily told ABC News. However, she added that in this particular race, she “can’t see this flipping the election by any stretch.”
Throughout the race, Earle-Sears has continued the Youngkin administration’s focus on the issue, she told ABC News in a statement.
“We see it’s about $30 million worth of attack ads against me related to trans youth,” the Democrat told Katie Couric in an interview last week. “There’s a real effort to engage in some level of fearmongering.”
Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
“I do find it really objectionable that there would be kids who turn on the television and as in an effort to attack me, see images of themselves sort of reflected as a villain,” Spanberger added. “I really do believe that a lot of these choices, whether it’s sports participation or bathroom usage, needs to be made at the very local level with parents and teachers and administrators and not necessarily dictated — certainly not by the federal government — or the state government.”
In a recent ad her campaign released that appeared to be in response to the Earle-Sears team’s ones, Spanberger spoke to this directly.
“I believe we need to get politics out of our schools and trust parents and local communities,” she said.
Spanberger has maintained her lead against Earle-Sears, as Virginians cite issues like inflation and threats to democracy as some of their biggest concerns in the election, according to a recent poll from Christopher Newport University.
Furthermore, Virginia is home to over 300,000 federal workers, who have likely been affected by the actions taken by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and the current government shutdown.
Virginia-based Republican strategist Tucker Martin believes that beyond Earle-Sears’ closing strategy, the current political environment in Virginia meant that her campaign for governor was “uphill from the start.”
“Any Republican who is going to be the Republican nominee for governor in this cycle — with Trump back in the White House in a state that he’s lost three straight times by significant margins — was going to be in big trouble,” Martin told ABC News.
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Martin doesn’t think Earle-Sears’ focus on trans rights has resonated “at all” among voters.
“Transgender issues just aren’t top of mind for Virginians right now,” he said.
“What works well in Florida or Wisconsin may not work well in Virginia or New Jersey,” Martin added, invoking another hotly contested gubernatorial race this year. However, Martin said that it could prove to be a “powerful issue” in “competitive congressional races.”
With the 2026 midterms fast-approaching, and Republicans seeking to maintain their control of both chambers of Congress and Democrats hoping to flip some seats, the political salience of culture war debates like this one is something that both parties will be paying attention to.
“Republicans have given in to the most extreme fringes of their party by abandoning pocketbook issues in favor of an anti-freedom agenda that is obsessed with letting politicians make decisions that should be left to parents and doctors,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton told ABC News in a statement.
“Rather than getting involved in personal matters, House Republicans should perhaps spend their time expanding the middle class, lowering costs, and protecting freedoms,” Shelton’s statement continued. “That’s certainly what House Democrats are focused on — and it’s why we’ll win in 2026.”
Spanberger has been able to avoid addressing the debate head-on in this race, often pointing to her experience investigating child predators as a federal law enforcement officer and her belief that such decisions should be left up to local communities.
According to Martin, this question is something that Democrats like Spanberger will need to shore up their stances on in upcoming elections in other states or districts.
“I wouldn’t say the Spanberger campaign has handled it well, but what they have going for them is it’s just not an issue in Virginia that voters are particularly concerned about,” Martin said.
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