Abigail Spanberger will be the first political test for Donald Trump’s second term

Donald Trump is, again, the president-elect. Virginia’s 2025 election cycle, which is pretty much under way now, will be the first political test of Trump Administration 2.0.

Abigail Spanberger, you’re on deck.

“In my campaign to serve as the next governor of Virginia, I’ll continue to engage Virginians across our Commonwealth on the issues that matter most – stronger schools, safer communities, and lower costs for Virginia families. All Virginians, particularly our children, deserve leadership that brings people together around the values that unite us,” said Spanberger, who is focused in the interim on wrapping up her last few weeks in Congress, with her eye on next year’s governor’s race.

Democrats have already settled on their candidate, which will be an advantage going into 2025 with Republicans having an unsettled situation at the top of their ticket.

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has already announced her candidacy for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Attorney General Jason Miyares has not formally entered the race yet, but it’s a given that he will, presumably before the end of the month.

Just gotta say it this way: it’s fair to assume that Miyares will be the favorite, because we’re talking about the Republican Party here, and Earle-Sears is a Black woman, and that side is not going to want to put a woman of color as its standard bearer.

You can @me all day long, but you know I’m not lying here.

Spanberger, for her part, is a battle-tested candidate, coming off three terms representing the Seventh District, a 50/50 district that includes counties in the Northern Virginia exurbs, stretches of rural Republican territory in Central Virginia and touches the outer rings of the Richmond exurbs.

It helps that her successor in the Seventh will be Democrat Eugene Vindman, who won a 50/50 race with Republican Derrick Anderson in Tuesday’s election.

An Anderson win would not have been a good look for Spanberger going into the 2025 cycle.

“The district I have proudly represented for three terms, Virginia’s Seventh District, elected a new Member of Congress who fled the Soviet Union as a child, arrived in America as a refugee, and eventually served our country in the U.S. Army. Eugene Vindman’s win shows that we are still a land of incredible promise, though we are a divided one. There’s hard work ahead,” Spanberger said.