1989 Virginia gubernatorial election
November 7, 1989
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| Turnout | 66.5% (voting eligible) | ||||||||||||||||
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Wilder: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Coleman: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Virginia |
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The 1989 Virginia gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1989. Incumbent Democratic governor Jerry Baliles was unable to seek a second term due to term limits. Democratic nominee and Lieutenant Governor L. Douglas Wilder went against former attorney general of Virginia J. Marshall Coleman in one of the closest elections in Virginia history. Upon taking the oath of office in January 1990, Governor Wilder became the first African-American governor of Virginia, the first African-American governor of any state since Reconstruction more than one hundred years earlier, and the first African-American elected as the governor of a U.S. state in a fully open election, as opposed to the unusual circumstances under which the Reconstruction governors were chosen.
This remains the last election in which a party won the governorship for a third consecutive term, and the last when Giles County backed a Democrat for Governor.
Coleman's perception as being far-right on the issue of abortion was a major deciding factor in swinging independents to Wilder in the election, which otherwise found little ideological separation between two candidates from the respective centrist wings of their parties.