Virginia elects its governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state delegates one year after the presidential election, and there are plenty of people who don’t bother to cast a ballot. J. Miles Coleman is with UVA’s Center for Politics.
"The last two presidential races have had a little over four million votes cast. The last two gubernatorial races by contrast have been more in the three million ballpark," he explains.
Because turnout for the state election is lower, he says political parties can win by raising emotional issues that will drive turnout, and one of those issues is abortion.
As it happens, Virginia voters may get the chance to protect reproductive rights in their constitution next year. If the General Assembly approves it, an amendment will be on the ballot in November of 2026. That means Democrats who favor the constitutional amendment for reproductive freedom must retain their majority in the closely divided House of Delegates.
Groups that oppose abortion have taken note and are actively campaigning for the Republican ticket. David Bereit is director of the Life Leadership Conference.
“Virginia is facing right now a life-or-death threat, and is ground zero in the pro-life movement. A dangerous constitutional amendment is rapidly moving forward that would impose unrestricted abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. It would also enshrine radical gender ideology and strip away protections for women and pre-born children, and it would gut parental rights.”
Actually, the amendment says nothing about transgender issues, and girls under 18 would still need parental permission to terminate a pregnancy, but Bereit and his allies are pressing ahead with their plan to work through churches in Virginia.
Bruce Schlesman is director of the Family Foundation’s Action division.
“We just did a pastor’s tour. We're putting voter guides in these churches so tens of thousands of voters around the state. We’re drawing comparisons between all the candidates on the ballot to kind of show them how they vote on Biblical issues. We’re going to flush out voters and get these low-propensity conservative evangelical voters to the polls to vote in record numbers.”
Kristan Hawkins and other members of Students for Life are also hoping to undo the Democrats' majority in the House of Delegates.
“We’ve made a concerted effort this year, especially in Virginia, to be on college campuses. This generation of young people are not as pro-abortion as Planned Parenthood wants you to believe they are.”
She says young volunteers will be especially persuasive as they go door-to-door, backing candidates who will oppose the constitutional amendment.
“When you’re a voter and you open that door to talk to somebody about a political campaign – which is not something that most people want to do – it just hits differently when it’s a younger person at the door. It’s why we tell young people to go out and pray in front of the abortion facilities.”
Other likely targets – one in ten Virginia voters who are practicing Catholics. Meanwhile, a coalition of groups supporting a woman’s right to choose will also be active on campus. Tarina Keene heads Repro Rising.
“It is critical that we secure our majority in the House of Delegates, because if we do not, we cannot move forward on the constitutional amendment. We simply will not have the votes.”
Her group has invested $200,000 to canvas in the Richmond area, Hampton Roads, Southwest Virginia and Prince William County.
Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood, says her group is knocking on voters doors to counter misinformation about the proposed amendment.
“We are seeing those who are opposed to abortion frankly lying about what the amendment does.”
And those actively working to elect candidates who back the amendment will explain why abortion is – in a sense – on the ballot in 2025.
“We know that the vast majority of Virginians support access to abortion and that this amendment is broader than that. It protects contraception, miscarriage treatment, IVF. 6 – Supporting the Virginia Right to Reproductive Freedom amendment keeps patients, not politicians in charge of their own healthcare decisions so that people can make these personal healthcare decisions for themselves.”
Democrats who support the amendment are also hoping for support from those who see this off-year election as a referendum on the president. During the last Trump administration, Virginia voters created a huge blue wave, giving the governor’s mansion and both branches of the General Assembly to Democrats. Political analyst Miles Coleman says some of the 235,000 Virginians who had worked for the federal government were dismissed by Trump.
“That’s just the federal workers, but there are all kinds of contractors and people who do work with the federal government.”
One other factor that could favor pro-choice candidates – political scientists say there are more Democrats than Republicans eligible to vote in Virginia, but as the last gubernatorial race showed, their success depends on their voters actually going to the polls.
