The Virginia Bar Association has invited Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, to a debate July 19 at the VBA Summer Meeting in Hot Springs.

Executive Director Paul Fletcher sent letters to the candidates and their campaigns last week. He requested that the candidates confirm their participation by May 16.

The VBA is a nonpartisan organization and has held debates among qualified candidates for statewide office since 1985. These events have included hopefuls for the U.S. Senate from Virginia as well as for governor and lieutenant governor.

The 2025 elections will be historic because the election will determine Virginia’s first female governor. And if Earle-Sears is elected, she will become the nation’s first Black woman governor.

Virginia limits terms on governors, so Gov. Glenn Youngkin is ineligible to run in the Nov. 4 election.

By sponsoring debates, the VBA seeks to educate the public, including VBA members, about candidates’ views on the issues of the day and to stimulate voter interest and participation in the election process. Plans call for the debate to be livestreamed.

Pundits have often noted that Virginia’s off-year elections reflect sentiment about the sitting president, with the candidate of the opposite party often becoming governor. The lone exception in recent years came in 2013, with the election of Gov. Terry McAuliffe following President Barack Obama’s reelection the previous year.

Spanberger is the Democrat in the race and was the 7th District representative in Congress from 2019-2025. Before then, she worked in the private sector after eight years as an operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. She was appointed in 2017 to the Virginia Fair Housing Board.

Earle-Sears is a Republican in her first term as lieutenant governor, the first woman of color to hold any statewide office in Virginia. She served in the Marine Corps from 1983-1986 and in the House of Delegates from 2002-2004. She was appointed in 2011 to the Virginia Board of Education.