This article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, with her three daughters on stage behind her, speaks to a crowd of supporters on election night. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Like so many women, Amy Towne’s call to action came on Nov. 8, 2016, shortly after tucking her then-1-year-old daughter into bed.
“I’ll never forget,” says the Chesterfield County mother of two, tearing up at the memory. She grabbed a bottle of Champagne and her Hillary Clinton-branded, pint-sized glasses (“made from 100% shattered glass ceiling”) and watched it all come crashing down. Trump won, Clinton lost, and Towne had had enough: “If my daughter can’t grow up to see a woman be president, she was going to see her mom doing everything she can to make a difference.”
Within days, Towne found herself at the first meeting of the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County at Capital Ale House in Midlothian, along with some 100 like-minded women. Their numbers would grow to more than 4,000 by the 2018 midterms, when the grassroots volunteer group helped political newcomer Abigail Spanberger upset tea party favorite Dave Brat to win the 7th District Congressional race, sending her to Congress for the first time.
Nine years later, Towne is chair of the Chesterfield County Democratic Committee; Spanberger, the governor-elect of Virginia.
“I feel like I can breathe. I feel like we have a layer of protection now,” Towne says of the Democratic landslide on Nov. 4. Spanberger not only defeated Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by 14 points, but Democrats swept all three statewide races and picked up 13 seats in the House of Delegates. “Now, I feel like for the next couple of years, if we can get through the Trump presidency, we have a chance to get some really good bills passed.”
Indeed, come January, Democrats will control the governor’s mansion and both houses of the General Assembly, with a virtually unshakable 64-36 majority in the House. And Spanberger isn’t the only one making history: In the decade since Donald Trump first descended the golden escalator, the number of women serving in Virginia’s legislature has more than doubled — rising from 24, or 17%, in 2015 to 56, or 40%, in 2026. In metro Richmond, women now hold eight of 13 seats, or 62%.
The rise of women in Virginia politics isn’t just a glass-ceiling moment; it bodes well for the future of representative democracy.
“Virginia has a history of women doing a really good job of legislating,” says Jatia Wrighten, assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University. Wrighten, who co-authored a recent study on the effectiveness of women lawmakers in full-time and part-time legislatures, says that women tend to be better at constituent work because voters demand it.
“They expect women to be a listening ear; they expect women to always be available,” Wrighten says. Higher expectations lead to higher-quality candidates, her research found, and when women overcome institutionalized sexism and other barriers, they’re far more effective than their male counterparts. “Women deliver policies that their constituents want. They do a lot more work with their voters; they are a lot more on the ground.”
Hollie Mann, an assistant professor at VCU who teaches democratic and feminist political theory, says women generally “govern in a more relational fashion. They take up each other’s bills; they reach across the aisle.”
Women who are elected to public office tend to lean more heavily on their “coalition and community,” Mann says. “It’s standing up for community, a ‘We will not let you do this to our children [mindset].’ It’s a style that’s almost maternalistic.”
Interviewed at Spanberger’s election night watch party at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-4th, says women are more willing to work collaboratively.
“Women do lead differently. We tend to find consensus. We are able to, you know, work through our differences to find common ground to solve problems,” says the Richmond-based legislator.
McClellan, who served six years in the Virginia Senate and 11 years in the House of Delegates (in 2010, she was the first delegate to serve while pregnant) says working moms are natural problem solvers. “Just having little kids is good practice for dealing with some of our colleagues that can be unreasonable,” she says.
For Towne, seeing Spanberger ascend to the governorship is about more than history. It’s about a fellow mom putting her community first.
“She was just so real, very easy to talk to,” Towne recalls of Spanberger’s breakout election in 2018. “I have a distinct memory: We had just finished putting together a bunch of signs for Election Day. We were at an elementary school, a week or so before the election. She kicked off her heels, put her feet up and started sharing stories about the campaign trail.”
The connection with Spanberger was just different.
“You could just tell that she was going to win,” Towne says. “She was going to be so much bigger.”
