Gov. Abigail Spanberger addresses lawmakers and supporters during a bill-signing ceremony May 11 for a new state law guaranteeing up to 12 weeks of paid family medical leave. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Seven months after her 15-point, landslide victory, Gov. Abigail Spanberger is entering a new, unsettling phase of her still-young gubernatorial term.
Call it the mudslide. The controversial redistricting battle that she supported, and then the Virginia Supreme Court overturned, along with multiple battles with Democratic lawmakers over her controversial legislative amendments, have left the centrist governor buried.
Two springtime polls confirm the swift undertow. Both George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and State Navigate found Spanberger’s approval rating had already dropped below 50% — the worst early showing ever for a Virginia governor.
“It’s like the double whammy,” says Richard Meagher, a political science professor at Randolph-Macon College. “You come in, you’re supposed to do all of this affordability stuff, and then we end up spending two months — well, now it’s five months — talking about redistricting and the new maps. And now she’s picking fights with the General Assembly, it seems, with unions, with criminal justice reformers. It’s just a lot to take on.”
Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting was initiated to combat Republican-led gerrymandering in other states, a redrawing done at the behest of President Donald Trump, but the state’s Supreme Court ruled the measure unconstitutional. The battle appears to have cost Spanberger credibility with independents and some center-right Republican voters.
Spanberger, who carefully crafted a moderate legislative persona while serving in Congress, is struggling to stay out of the partisan muck. After stating on the campaign trail that she had “no plans to redistrict Virginia,” she threw her support behind the push and helped the measure pass by 3 percentage points. She’s also walked back positions, seemingly, on incentivizing data centers and support for collective bargaining.
“Her brand is being a moderate — moderate Democrat, liberal on social issues, fairly moderate on the economic issues,” says longtime political analyst Bob Holsworth. “The challenge right now is that many Democrats want their leaders to be just absolute fighters. … Her instinct is to say, ‘Well, where can we cooperate?’”
Spanberger has plenty of time to recover, Holsworth says. It just won’t be easy.
“I think she’s smart. She has a chance of recalibrating,” he says, “but she has to do it in a much tougher environment.”
