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Former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger was declared the governor-elect after claiming 57.5% of the vote. Democratic state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi prevailed in the lieutenant governor race with 55.6%. And, despite having been the center of controversy after text messages from 2022 surfaced, former state Del. Jay Jones managed to unseat incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares. In the 100-seat House of Delegates, Democrats went from 51 seats to more than 60. Stephen Farnsworth, a political-science professor at the University of Mary Washington, told WTOP anchor Nick Iannelli and Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller on Tuesday that the Democratic candidates capitalizes on a distaste toward President Donald Trump’s administration. “This was very much a repudiation of the Trump policies and their painful impact on Virginia,” Farnsworth said. “An awful lot of votes are cast in Northern Virginia, and a lot of those people are connected to the federal government.” More Election News Spanberger win leads Democratic sweep of statewide races in Virginia WATCH: Victory, concession as Virginia votes in general election LIVE RESULTS: Virginia general election 2025 Virginia and Maryland local and county election results He said the president throws his confidence behind candidates who’ve supported him in the past, and who are already winning, which discouraged him from endorsing Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who was behind in the polls and has criticized Trump in the past. “The president doesn’t forget those slights, and that was yet another reason I think that the Trump political juggernaut had little interest in helping Earle-Sears, whether it was money, appearances or even mentioning her name,” Farnsworth said. While voting maps show southwestern Virginia as a solid red wall, it’s far less populated than Northern Virginia, the Richmond area and the Hampton Roads region. Alex Keena, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, said those areas, and therefore the commonwealth as a whole, have become more blue over the past decade. “Maybe it just speaks to sentiment about Trump and the fact that Spanberger ran a pretty good campaign,” Keena told WTOP. But David Richards, chair of the University of Lynchburg’s Political Science Department, said it’s less about Trump and more about Spanberger. He said her campaign should serve as a model to Democrats nationwide running in next year’s elections. “She definitely was somebody who would remind people that she was not Trump, etc., but she didn’t dwell on that. She really talked much more about those pocketbook issues,” Richards said on Tuesday. “I think this idea of simply bashing Trump is not going to work in the midterms, and I think we’ve seen that tonight.” Voter turnout Thousands of voters opted to cast their ballots early, a record high for a nonpresidential election in Virginia, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. More than 130,000 people voted early in-person in Fairfax County, according to the county’s office of elections. Staff and volunteers started processing those early votes Tuesday morning to help get results ready ahead of polls closing at 7 p.m. According to an update from Fairfax County’s office of elections, 23.9% of registered voters cast an absentee ballot or voted early in-person. Another 20.1% of the county’s 808,000 registered voters cast ballots on Election Day, as of 3 p.m. In Loudoun County, about 45.5% of the county’s 307,000 registered voters cast a ballot, including early and absentee ballots, according to a 4 p.m. update from the county’s office of elections. According to the Prince William County Office of Elections, more than 62,000 residents voted on Tuesday, as of 4 p.m. That brought Election Day turnout to 18.8% and another 23.2% of voters cast absentee or early ballots. How other races fared On the East Coast, New York City elected its first Muslim mayor in Zohran Mamdani and New Jersey voted in Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill. Jeremy Mayer, professor of policy and government at George Mason University, said the results made Election Day a “great night” for the Democratic party. “It’s also hard to understand what it means, because two moderate candidates won in New Jersey and Virginia, and runs one strong and then the most left wing Democrat to run on a nationally prominent race in decades is winning strong in New York City,” Mayer said on Tuesday evening. ABC News Political Analyst Steve Roberts told WTOP the differences within the Democratic Party could change lawmakers’ approach to politics. “Americans in Virginia and New Jersey tonight, voted their pocketbooks and voted their unhappiness with the economy, and if Democrats can coalesce around that argument, it can heal some of the divisions in the party,” Roberts said. Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here. © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. 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