"Spanberger ran on a message of pragmatic leadership, pledging to "lower costs and raise expectations," while emphasizing education, health care, and bipartisan problem-solving. By contrast, Earle-Sears, who said during a debate with Spanberger that firing a person because they are gay "is not discrimination," focused her campaign on cultural issues, employing a barrage of attacks on transgender people and diversity programs."
"MSNBC called the race 53 minutes after polls closed Tuesday, with Spanberger leading across much of the state, including the suburban swing regions that have come to define Virginia's modern political landscape. Her win marks a personal triumph and a broader political repudiation of campaigns built around anti-transgender fearmongering. Spanberger is expected to address supporters at an election night victory celebration in Richmond."
"As The Advocate previously reported, Earle-Sears's campaign released a "they/them" ad that accused Spanberger of supporting "men in girls' locker rooms." Another spot featured a digitally-altered image of a young boy on a girls' sports team and claimed Spanberger backed "irreversible sterilization" of minors, claims experts and fact-checkers debunked as false and misleading. LGBTQ+ advocates condemned the ads as dangerous and dehumanizing, warning that such rhetoric fuels violence and misunderstanding about transgender youth."
Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer and three-term Democratic congresswoman, won Virginia's governor's race, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and returning the executive mansion to Democratic control. Spanberger led in suburban swing regions and was projected by MSNBC shortly after polls closed. Spanberger campaigned on pragmatic leadership, pledging to "lower costs and raise expectations" while emphasizing education, health care, and bipartisan problem-solving. Earle-Sears concentrated on cultural issues and ran ads targeting transgender people and diversity programs; experts and fact-checkers labeled several claims false and misleading, and LGBTQ+ advocates condemned the rhetoric as dangerous.
Read at Advocate.com
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