BY SOUMANOU SALIFOU

November 4, 2025 will be a watershed moment in Virginia’s history, with potentially huge consequences not only for us Virginians, but also for the entire nation.

Arguably, no gubernatorial election in this state has so far made as much history as that of November 7, 1989, when a grandson of slaves, Lawrence Douglas Wilder—best known as Doug Wilder—rose to the highest office in the state that played a pivotal role in the Civil War, housing the capital of the Confederacy. This year’s gubernatorial election carries even more history, with the guaranteed election of the state’s first female governor, at a time when the president of the United States is taking the country down an unprecedently dangerous path laid out in lawlessness.

Unlike 1990 when Wilder became our state’s governor, the very fabric of our nation is now being systematically demolished day after day by the first convicted felon who became our president last January, Donald Trump, a corrupt, evil man who cannot stop at anything. Whom we elect on November 4 as our governor can play a significant role in stopping—or not stopping—Trump from using our state as another Texas to reach his evil goals.

This is very personal for me. I chose Virginia as my residence in 1986 and have never left. This is where I got married, where most of my children were born and went to college, and where I was blessed to become a grandpa. Not the least, Virginia is also the birthplace of the first-ever African magazine published in this great nation, The African, which I was inspired to create to connect my fellow Black Americans to our roots, Africa.

With her racial background, Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears fits in the target audience of my Godchild, The African. Under normal circumstances, she would have been my choice to become the governor of our beautiful state. But the stakes in this election are humongous, higher than racial considerations.

Last November, the sky fell, and we reelected Donald Trump as our president because America was reluctant to elect a woman as its president. Now faced with a choice between two women, with one, Abigail Spanberger, who can save us from Trump, and the other, Winsome Earle-Sears, who will do Trump’s bidding, I want to raise my little voice as loudly as I can to appeal to my fellow-Virginians to do the right thing. Elect Abigail Spanberger as our state’s governor.

Donald Trump’s hands are stained by the blood of our brave fellow citizens who died on January 6, 2021, at the hand of the mob he unleashed on the shrine of our democracy in a coup attempt. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two justices who sided with Trump in the aftermath of the coup attempt, are the emblematic figures in the Supreme Court whose majority-members have unambiguously defaulted on their oath to uphold the Constitution.

No doubt, they will continue to do Trump’s bidding, like House Majority leader Mike Johnson and his counterpart in the Senate, John Thune. But we, Virginian voters, have the non-violent yet powerful nuclear weapon that is the ballot box. Let’s use it appropriately by electing as our new governor, a proven leader, Abigail Spanberger, who will do her best to shield us, our children and their children, against Trump.

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Soumanou Salifou is the founder/publisher/CEO of The African, the premier African magazine published in the United States, dating back to 1994.