RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrat Abigail Spanberger has been sworn into office as Virginia’s first female governor. Spanberger was sworn in at noon Saturday amid a cold drizzle outside the state Capitol after centuries of men holding the state’s top office.
Spanberger defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin, also a Republican. It marks a new chapter as Democrats pull the levers of power in Virginia while Republican President Donald Trump sits in the White House next door.
Two other Democrats were also sworn in. Ghazala F. Hashmi, the first Muslim woman to serve in statewide office in the U.S., is the new lieutenant governor. Jay Jones is the first Black person elected attorney general in Virginia.
Spanberger, a former CIA case officer and member of Congress, defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in November. Her inauguration as the state’s 75th governor is a historic first: only men have held the post since Virginia first became a commonwealth in 1776. And no woman served as a colonial governor before then.
She will be referred to with traditional formality: “Madam Governor” or, as some officials phrase it, “her excellency.”
According to “A Guide to Virginia Protocol and Traditions,” males in the official party wear morning coats and women wear dark suits for the inauguration and many, including the new governor’s husband, kept to that tradition on Saturday.
But as the first woman to serve as governor, Spanberger wore all white on Saturday, a possible tribute to the women’s suffrage movement. She wore a gold pin on her long, white coat.
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