RICHMOND (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Unless there’s an unlikely independent or write-in campaign, Virginia will have its first female Governor taking office in January. Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears was declared the Republican nominee in the 2025 Govenor’s race in November after the Virginia Department of Elections determined former state Senator Amanda Chase, also a woman, failed to get the number of Virginia voter signatures to qualify for the June Republican primary ballot. Candidates needed 10,000 signatures overall from Virginia registered voters, and at least 400 from each of the Commonwealth’s congressional districts. Chase said she was not sure she would have the number last Thursday morning, the day of the deadline, and a number came into her Appomattox office that day, so she took them to Richmond and submitted them 20 minutes before the deadline. The Department determined, according to The Washington Post, she had only about 6000.

Abigail Spanberger, who submitted 40,000 signatures the first day she could, was declared Thursday the Democrats’ nominee. Sears submitted some 20,000 signatures the same day and was almost immediately determined qualified. It’s the first time in the Commonwealth’s history two women have run for Governor as the major party nominees. They’re also the first women to secure nomination since Mary Sue Terry resigned as two-term Virginia Attorney General to run for Governor for the Democrats in 1993. She lost the general election to at that time Earlysville resident George Allen.