Virginia politics is stuck in a strange limbo. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin rode a wave of backlash to COVID policies into the governor’s office in 2021, built his brand on parental grievance, and then watched Democrats in the state Assembly block much of his agenda. “There’s a lot of frustration among Democrats,” Dogwood political correspondent Michael O’Connor says, as vetoes pile up on issues from collective bargaining to minimum wage hikes. Even cannabis, which is technically legal to possess but not to sell, sits in a gray market that mirrors the broader stalemate.
The 2025 election cuts through that stalemate with unusually high stakes. “Virginia’s next governor could decide the future of our democracy,” is the title of one of the Dogwood’s recent articles, framing a race between Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earles-Sears. Spanberger brings resources, pragmatism, and popularity, while Sears has leaned hard into culture wars at a moment when voters rank cost of living and reproductive rights at the top of their concerns. One campaign looks built to govern, the other to posture.
Those stakes go well beyond partisanship. Virginia is the only southern state without an abortion ban, and Democrats want to enshrine protections in the state constitution.
“The short answer is misogyny,” O’Connor says when pressed on why Virginia has never elected a woman governor, a blunt reminder of what’s at stake this year. Add in voting rights rollbacks, clinic closures from federal cuts, and a cost-of-living crisis — and November looks less like a routine state contest and more like a referendum on whether Virginia can resist Trumpism.
Tune in for this First Draft with and Michael O’Connor — a deep dive into how Virginia’s elections are more important than you may think.
The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Is an Economic IED
You can always count on Donald Trump and Mike Johnson to deliver — if by "deliver" you mean setting fire to your kitchen while telling you they're cooking you a steak. Their latest legislative mutant hellspawn Frankenstein is the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” a name so dumb it sounds like it was focus-grouped by a meth lab in the Florida panhandle.
