Virginia’s Election Could Affect Abortion Access Across the South

Early voting is in full swing in Virginia’s general election. The results could determine whether abortion remains fully legal and widely available in this Southern battleground state.

If Democrats keep their narrow majority in the 100-seat House of Delegates, they will likely pass a ballot initiative asking voters to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution in 2026. The Democrat-led state senate passed the measure in January 2025, but must pass an identical proposal in the next legislative session before a constitutional amendment can be put to voters.

If Republicans claw back the legislative majority they held until the 2019 election, they would likely block that effort.

Virginia currently allows abortion through the second trimester of pregnancy, or until about 27 weeks. Later abortions are allowed if the pregnancy is life-threatening. It is the only Southern state that has not passed any new abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Virginians are also electing their next governor in November. The Democratic candidate, former U.S. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, has made protecting reproductive rights a centerpiece of her campaign. Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the state’s current lieutenant governor, has said she is “morally opposed” to abortion and has signaled support for banning abortion after either six weeks or 15 weeks.

In an Oct. 9 gubernatorial debate, Spanberger accused her opponent of wanting to “inflict upon Virginia” the kind of extreme abortion restrictions passed in nearby states.

“Women have died,” she said of those laws.

Purple state politics

Spanberger, who was endorsed by former President Barack Obama on Oct. 16, “has been the favorite in the gubernatorial race, really the whole time,” said Kyle Kondik in an interview with Rewire News Group. Kondik is the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan newsletter from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

In recent weeks, Spanberger’s roughly 12-point polling lead has narrowed to around 2 to 9 points. The drop followed revelations that the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, Jay Jones, sent text messages viciously insulting a Republican colleague in 2022. Still, Spanberger remains the frontrunner.

A Spanberger win does not itself guarantee that abortion remains protected in Virginia. Because legislators need to pass the abortion amendment again to get it on the ballot, the balance of the Virginia legislature will likely have a more immediate impact on abortion rights, Kondik said.

Even if Earle-Sears—who has not been endorsed by President Donald Trump—snagged the governor’s race, he said, “Democrats probably still would be favored to hold the House of Delegates.”

Virginia, a onetime Republican stronghold that swung Democratic in 2008’s election of Barack Obama, is often called a “purple” state. The governor’s mansion has swapped party hands regularly in the past 30 years, and in 2017, the House of Delegates became evenly split at 50-50.

Yet beyond the persuadable centrist voters who draw national media attention, Virginia contains large pockets of deep conservatism, and those areas have moved rightward with the Republican party. Meanwhile, its growing urban areas lean left.

Virginia’s current governor, Glenn Youngkin, is a right-wing Republican and Trump ally (Youngkin is term-limited by law). But his record on reproductive rights is less extreme than that of any other Southern Republican governor.

In the 2023 state legislative race, Youngkin rallied Republican candidates around a plan to put a 15-week limit on abortion—a stance he apparently hoped could help his party win control of the statehouse. In 2024, Youngkin signed a law backed by abortion advocates that prohibits search warrants, subpoenas, or court orders from being used to obtain private digital health data.

(Read more: Big Tech Is Coming For Your Health Data. How to Protect Your Information)

But Youngkin also vetoed bills that would have protected reproductive rights, including “shield” law legislation seeking to protect Virginia abortion providers from civil and criminal prosecution for prescribing abortion medication to patients in states that outlaw it.

Spanberger, of Virginia’s 7th district, has built her political career on winning over centrists and moderates. She flipped her suburban Richmond district from reliably Republican to nominally Democrat in 2018 amid discontent with the extremism of President Donald Trump’s first term. She then narrowly held onto her seat in 2020, with just over 50 percent of the vote, and won it again in 2022, more comfortably.

If Spanberger becomes Virginia’s next governor, she has committed to maintain Virginia’s existing protections—and restrictions—on abortion access.

“I support the current laws within Virginia,” she said in the Oct. 9 debate, “which include limits on minors obtaining abortions, which include limits after the second trimester.”

Spanberger added, “I support the Roe standard,” referring to the Supreme Court’s now-defunct 1973 determination that abortion care is a private medical decision for a pregnant person to make up until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be around 24 to 26 weeks.

That remains the standard in Virginia, and the proposed ballot measure on abortion would essentially codify current law as a state constitutional right.

The next governor will have little say in that initiative other than a review of how the measure is worded on the final ballot, experts say. If voters are given the opportunity to vote on the amendment and ultimately approve the measure, their decision would become law.

Until that happens, however, the governor has significant control over the regulation of abortion care, said Vivian Hamilton, a professor at William & Mary Law School.

“Since there is no constitutional right, continued access is not secure,” Hamilton said. “A governor absolutely can influence the legislators’ ability to protect reproductive rights.”

For example, with a Democratic governor and Democrat-led legislature, Virginia could join the growing ranks of blue states passing “shield” laws.

(Read more: Patients in States With Abortion Bans Are the Biggest Users of Abortion Telemedicine)

Regional destination

Virginia is already a destination state for out-of-state patients who want or need an abortion, said Autumn Celeste, communications director for the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, which serves Virginians seeking abortions and out-of-state patients traveling to Virginia for care.

Abortion funds help patients find clinics and pay for their abortion care. They also sometimes arrange child care and support patients’ care following the procedure.

After Roe fell, Celeste said, “states around us quickly enacted abortion bans.”

Neighboring North Carolina now bans abortion at 12 weeks. Florida and Georgia both outlaw it after six weeks with a few exceptions. Tennessee has a total abortion ban with limited exceptions.

Today, out-of-state patients currently make up about 25 percent of the callers to the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, up from about 15 percent before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe, was decided, Celeste said. North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia top the list.

Other data backs up this observation. Virginia clinics performed 6,600 more abortions in 2024 than in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization aiming to improve reproductive rights. The number of out-of-state patients increased by about 4,400. A Guttmacher policy advisor attributed that spike mainly to Florida’s May 2024 six-week abortion ban.

“Virginia really is holding the line for abortion seekers in the South,” Celeste added. “And that’s something that we’re proud of.”

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