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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Former President Barack Obama will campaign alongside Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in the final stretch of their statewide campaigns for governor in Virginia and New Jersey.

Spanberger and Sherrill’s campaigns said in Tuesday news releases that Obama will campaign with both candidates at Nov. 1 rallies in Norfolk, Virginia, and Newark, New Jersey. Election Day is Nov. 4.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares and Democratic challenger Jay Jones squabbled over a host of lawyerly issues on Thursday in their first and only debate: criminal prosecutions, consumer protection and unlawful discrimination. But one matter overshadowed it all: Jones’ leaked text messages endorsing political violence toward a former colleague.

Miyares, the Republican incumbent running for reelection, pushed hard against Jones for suggesting to a Republican delegate in 2022 text messages that former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert should get “two bullets to the head.”


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Democrat James Walkinshaw, a politician with experience working on Capitol Hill, has won a special election to be the next U.S. House representative of the Virginia district home to the state’s most populous county.

Walkinshaw’s victory in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District helps Democrats winnow Republicans’ narrow majority in the House and only adds to the GOP’s spending battles this month ahead of a potential government shutdown.


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HOPEWELL, Va. (AP) — Against an olive drab backdrop in a barbecue joint filled with the aroma of pulled pork and the sweat of a Virginia summer, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears told voters she was running her campaign for governor like a military-style operation.

The lieutenant governor, a former Marine, said she would protect Virginia just as she did America. The way Earle-Sears tells it, not all attacks come from soldiers.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats in Virginia have built up a hefty fundraising advantage for their effort to reclaim the governor’s mansion in a race seen as a bellwether for the party in power in Washington heading into the 2026 midterms.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA case officer turned congresswoman, has a more than 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over her GOP opponent in November, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who has struggled to draw support from her fellow Republicans. Both were unopposed for their party’s nominations and were able to focus on the fall general election without having to overcome a challenge in this week’s primaries. The matchup means Virginia is all but certain to elect the state’s first female governor.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The candidates for Virginia’s lieutenant governor are set to make history after Sen. Ghazala Hashmi won the Democratic nomination for the position on Wednesday.

Hashmi is the first Muslim and the first Indian-American to be nominated to appear on the ballot for a Virginia statewide office. She defeated five other candidates, including Democrat Levar Stoney by less than a percentage point, to secure the nomination in a razor-thin primary race. Stoney congratulated Hashmi on Wednesday in a concession statement.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Former Del. Jay Jones will look to be the face of legal resistance to President Donald Trump in Virginia after winning Tuesday’s closely watched Democratic state primary for attorney general.

Jones will face Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares in the November general election. His victory was a critical step for Democrats in rounding out their ticket ahead of a bellwether election later this year.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Democrats are set on Tuesday to pick their nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general, rounding out the statewide ticket and setting the stage for a bellwether election later this year.

Most of the nominees slated to be at the top of the November ticket have already been picked, and Republicans aren’t even having a statewide primary.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) —Two Virginia Democrats are battling Tuesday to be their party’s nominee for attorney general. Yet, the name mentioned most in their campaigns is not that of their opponent, but rather a man who lives just over the Arlington Memorial Bridge: President Donald Trump.

The barrage of changes Trump has wrought to American culture in the first few months of his second White House residency has ignited the campaigns of Virginia Democrats Jay Jones and Shannon Taylor as they appeal unrelentingly to the most devout swaths of their base ahead of down-ballot primary elections. The primary will also determine the party’s nominations this year for lieutenant governor and some contested seats in the House of Delegates.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Gerald “Gerry” Connolly, an outspoken Democrat who sought key reforms in the federal government while bringing transformational development to his populous Virginia district, died Wednesday. He was 75.

Connolly, who most recently held a prominent position as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, served in Congress for more than 16 years.