RICHMOND — Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney announced Tuesday that he is dropping out of next year’s race for Virginia governor and running for lieutenant governor instead.
Stoney, who has faced a tough contest against U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.) for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, had been calling donors, supporters and others in recent days to say he would bow out of that race. He made it official with an early-morning news release Tuesday.
“After careful consideration with my family, I believe that the best way to ensure that all Virginia families do get the change they deserve is for our party to come together, avoid a costly and damaging primary and, for me to run instead for Lieutenant Governor,” Stoney said in the statement.
Stoney acknowledged his long odds against Spanberger in the statement without mentioning the congresswoman by name, saying that “while there was a path to victory [in the governor’s race] it was a narrow path.”
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Stoney’s shift to the lieutenant governor’s contest could create some awkwardness for Democrats who have already committed to others seeking that office — a part-time, largely ceremonial post, but one that is often a steppingstone to the Executive Mansion.
Former governor Terry McAuliffe (D), Stoney’s political mentor, endorsed him for governor but someone else for lieutenant governor: Babur B. Lateef, a prominent Northern Virginia eye surgeon and chairman of the Prince William County School Board.
McAuliffe — whose daughter, Sally McAuliffe, is Stoney’s political director — is sticking by his endorsem*nt of Lateef but has not ruled out endorsing Stoney for the same office, a spokeswoman for the former governor said. McAuliffe held a fundraiser for Lateef in Charlottesville on Sunday.
“In a conversation with Governor McAuliffe last night, he reiterated his strong endorsem*nt of my campaign for Lieutenant Governor,” Lateef wrote in a text to The Washington Post on Tuesday.
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McAuliffe spokeswoman Caroline Corl confirmed that account but added in a follow-up text that he will support Stoney as well.
“Of course he’s supporting Babur and of course he’ll support Levar,” she wrote. “He loves Levar. The Governor has a simple rule — if you supported him, he supports you — no matter how many people are in the race.”
Other Democrats have lined up behind two state senators who have been preparing to join the lieutenant governor’s race: Aaron R. Rouse (Virginia Beach) and Ghazala F. Hashmi (Chesterfield).
Rouse announced his bid for lieutenant governor Tuesday morning with a news release that noted his endorsem*nts by about two dozen Democrats, including two prominent members of the Legislative Black Caucus: Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas (Portsmouth) and Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Mamie E. Locke (Hampton).
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“I’ve built my career on winning in tough spots when it matters — whether it be under the glare of NFL lights or flipping the State Senate seat needed to ensure we blocked Republicans’ assaults on reproductive freedom and voting rights,” said Rouse, a former National Football League player and Virginia Beach City Council member who joined the Senate last year after winning a special election. He won a four-year term in November.
Some Democrats had urged Stoney late last year to run for lieutenant governor instead of governor, sensing that Spanberger, a former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman, would be a formidable gubernatorial candidate, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. They said they would be less enthusiastic about his bid for lieutenant governor now since his entry would shake up the field.
Spanberger had an enormous fundraising lead over Stoney, raising more than $3.6 million between her announcement in November and the end of December. She entered January with more than $3 million in cash, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.
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Stoney raised just under $760,000 over that period and ended the year with about $688,000 in the bank.
Stoney was first elected in 2016 as Richmond’s youngest popularly elected mayor. Before that, he served as secretary of the commonwealth during the first years of McAuliffe’s administration. In that role, Stoney helped lead efforts that restored voting rights to about 170,000 Virginians who had completed sentences for felony convictions.
The 2025 governor’s race got off to an unusually early start in November — nearly two years before the election — when Spanberger announced that she would not seek a fourth term in Congress and would run instead for governor. Stoney threw his hat into the ring in December.
They are the only candidates of either party to formally enter the race to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who is prohibited by Virginia’s constitution from serving back-to-back terms. On the Republican side, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares are expected to compete for their party’s nomination.
