Politics

Abigail Spanberger faces a national test with Virginia redistricting

Published

7 months ago

March 26, 2026

Virginia Democrats are putting pressure on Gov. Abigail Spanberger to get their redistricting campaign across the finish line as they grow increasingly worried about losing their April special election — and hurting their chances for flipping the House this November.

The aggressive effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps, if voters approve the referendum, could deliver Democrats a 10-to-1 seat advantage in Virginia, giving them four more seats than they would likely win under the current map. But despite Democrats’ having a fundraising advantage ten times that of the Republican side, the GOP is seeing strong early voting turnout.

With less than one month to go, nearly a dozen Democratic state lawmakers, strategists and candidates say Spanberger — Virginia’s popular Democratic governor who cruised to victory by double-digits last November — needs to step up more assertively to sell the referendum to voters. And they’re warning that she’ll bear the brunt of the blame if the effort fails.

It’s not that she’s doing nothing: Spanberger has endorsed the referendum and launched an ad supporting it this week, her first of the campaign, as Blue Light News first reported. But critics say it’s the bare minimum for an effort that is supposed to be a top Democratic priority as the party works to counter GOP-led states that are redrawing their own maps.

“We Democrats gotta stop bringing a spork to a knife fight. If the Democrats are putting all their stock in this, like, let’s bring our A game,” said Democrat Beth Macy, who is running for Congress in one of the five House districts currently held by the GOP. She added that it would be “helpful” for Spanberger “to be the spokesperson on redistricting because she did so well and won by so much” in 2025.

Prior to her inauguration, Spanberger, who campaigned as a moderate focused on affordability for Virginians, stopped short of fully embracing the drastic redistricting plan the Democratic-led legislature eventually approved. Once in office, she began towing the party line and signed legislation enabling the referendum to go before voters. But she hasn’t been nearly as outspoken on the issue as other leading Democrats in the state — or other Democratic governors who have pushed for gerrymanders in their states, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The stakes are high for Spanberger: A loss on redistricting could impact her rising star status on the national stage.

“How could she watch what Gavin Newsom just did and do the exact opposite?” asked a Democratic activist in Virginia who has worked closely with the pro-redistricting campaign and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Out in the field, we really don’t know whether she is for or against this thing.”

Spanberger’s team argues she’s been fighting hard for the new map.

“There isn’t a Democrat in Virginia who has done more to encourage voters to support this referendum than Governor Spanberger,” Libby Wiet, a spokesperson for Spanberger, said in a statement. “She’s a particularly effective messenger because she’s meeting voters where many of them are — Virginians who supported the bipartisan commission in 2020 but understand that the ballgame changed when the President claimed he’s ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress, and states got to work to give them to him.”

Virginia is not nearly as deeply blue as California is, and many of the state’s Democrats view wooing voters to the polls in April, rather than November, as a gargantuan undertaking. Spanberger is also a brand-new governor with other legislative priorities she wants to spend her political juice on more than helping Democrats take control of the House. And the “yes” campaign is running the risk of turning off Virginians who in 2020 approved a constitutional amendment creating a bipartisan redistricting commission by a two-to-one margin.

Adding confusion to the Democrats’ push is the Virginia Supreme Court, which has reserved the right to potentially nullify the redistricting push after the April election.

Polling on the issue has not been a slam dunk for Democrats. Nearly two-thirds of Virginians support the current method of drawing Congressional districts, while slightly more than half said they would vote to keep the current process in place, according to a Roanoke College survey last month. A separate survey from January found a slight majority, 51 percent, supported the Democratic-backed push to redraw lines.

Spanberger’s defenders push back on the need for the governor to step in as a central figure of the “yes” campaign. It’s a collective effort, they argue, and is supported by towering Democrats in the state, including the lieutenant governor, attorney general and Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

“There’s no one person that has to carry the weight alone,” said Kéren Charles Dongo, the campaign manager Virginia for Fair Elections, which has amassed more than $33 million in donations and is working to mobilize voters.

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, one of the architects of the redistricting push, has vehemently rejected the comparisons of Spanberger to Newsom — and the need for her to hold more rallies or meet and greets around the state.

“She’s only been on a job freaking 70 days,” he said. “We’re gonna be fine. I feel very confident that we’re gonna win.”

The governor’s seven-figure ad buy this week featured her speaking directly to camera about her party’s “temporary” effort to redraw lines and slamming “Trump’s Redistricting War.” Dongo’s group has also been blanketing the airwaves and social media with ads, including one featuring former President Barack Obama telling Virginians they have a “chance to level the playing field” in the face of unchecked power in Washington. Those close to the campaign also note that more voting sites are opening up in Democratic strongholds in population-rich Northern Virginia, and they anticipate a surge in “yes” voters closer to Election Day.

Privately, some Democrats anticipate Spanberger will ramp up her involvement in the closing weeks of the campaign, after being tied up with reviewing the bills the Virginia legislature passed.

“I think it’s easier if there’s somebody who’s a central person,” said Sarah Pendergraph, chair of the Roanoke City Democratic Committee, who suggested a jolt from a prominent figure like Spanberger may spur more volunteers and voters into action.

Meanwhile, Virginia conservatives have been lambasting Spanberger on social media, essentially making her the face of their anti-redistricting campaign. They’ve slammed her for reversing her stance on redistricting and caving to pressure from state and national Democrats.

“Abigail Spanberger seems to be intent on trying to turn Virginia into California east, so she probably will welcome Gavin Newsom,” said Jason Miyares, the former GOP Virginia Attorney General who is serving as co-chair of Virginians for Fair Maps, which is working to defeat the ballot measure and has raised roughly $3 million.

A small group of cameras followed Spanberger as she cast her ballot last Friday and held an impromptu gaggle from the parking lot of the Richmond City Elections office, where the governor pushed back on Republican critiques that she’s a flip-flopper on the gerrymander issue.

“Had they spoken in opposition to [Trump’s] efforts, I would perhaps take their level of consternation with a bit more seriousness,” Spanberger said. “It wasn’t until their individual House seats seemed in doubt … that they decided to have any opposition to redistricting.”

That retort was insufficient for some Virginia Democrats, who were frustrated that Spanberger didn’t hit back even harder — or use the opportunity, on the heels of casting her “yes” ballot, to forcefully rebuke the misleading mailers Republican-aligned groups have circulated that suggest she is a “no” vote on redistricting.

“She is certainly not 1,000 percent on board,” said a Democratic official granted anonymity to speak candidly about how they view the governor’s involvement. The person suggested the Democratic-led “yes” campaign should work on luring other big-name surrogates to rev up excitement for the base, including Obama, Newsom, Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), to ensure the redistricting effort doesn’t fail.

“If it goes down,” the official said, “[Spanberger] is gonna own it [so she] might as well go out there.”

Politics

Blakeman’s bank statements don’t match his disclosure reports

Published

30 minutes ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman's campaign finance disclosure reports contain numerous inaccuracies.

🚨🚨MUST READ🚨🚨: Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a group of fellow basketball enthusiasts have been secretly using the NYPD Police Academy’s gymnasium in Queens to play pickup ball, according to four people familiar with the games. The mayor and his crew typically show up around 10 or 11 p.m. and enter surreptitiously through a loading dock before hitting the court. While sports fanaticism has often buoyed the political brand of past mayors, Mamdani’s choice of venue is raising eyebrows. Read the story from POLITICO’s Graham Rayman, Chris Sommerfeldt and Joe Anuta here.

FINANCE FLAWS: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s campaign finance disclosure reports have been plagued by inaccuracies since the spring. Copies of the campaign’s bank statements obtained by Blue Light News suggest his filings might have even more problems than previously suspected.

According to a disclosure report submitted to the state Board of Elections earlier this month, the Blakeman campaign had only $178,000 in the bank as of Sept. 28.

Yet the campaign’s checking account had a balance of $1.7 million on Sept. 28, according to TD Bank’s monthly statement.

The bank records also show dozens of transactions that are missing from his campaign finance filings.

On July 29, for example, the bank statements identified the campaign using a check with the number 1156 to make a $13,500 payment to an unspecified recipient. Yet Blakeman’s campaign finance reports do not identify any transactions that used check number 1156. It also hasn’t shown a single payment totaling $13,500 at any point over the past year.

In addition, there are instances in which the bank records show apparent contributions to the campaign that never show up in the disclosure reports. The statements show Blakeman was wired $18,000 by actress Lois Robbins on Sept. 2, for example, while the filings don’t show any transactions totaling $18,000 within two weeks of that date or any donations from Robbins. An $18,000 wire from attorney and campaign finance chair Howard Fensterman in July similarly doesn’t match anything in the disclosure reports.

Blakeman is the first gubernatorial candidate in state history to participate in the new matching funds program that lets him receive up to $3.5 million in public money. Then-Mayor Eric Adams was blocked from participating in a similar New York City program last year due to discrepancies between his bank statements and disclosure reports.

Reinvent Albany’s Kyle Kennedy said he didn’t know the cause of the discrepancies, but that it could just be due to “the timing of when things were recorded.”

But, he noted, Blakeman’s campaign “will automatically be audited by the Board of Elections after the election. … Campaign finance enforcement takes place after elections, not in real-time.”

Blakeman’s campaign didn’t respond to a request to explain the discrepancies. It has previously said its campaign finance problems are due to technical issues caused by a large number of donors.

Several of the candidate’s campaign finance disclosure reports have been repeatedly amended, often in ways that made the initial numbers wildly inaccurate. His July report showed him with $4.7 million in the bank; that was changed a week later to show his balance was $6.1 million; then in August it was changed to $4.3 million.

As Blue Light News reported earlier this month, Blakeman has received about $360,000 in donations over the contribution limit that he still needs to return. Many of the donations he has already returned have been highly unusual — one person who gave $1 in July was quickly refunded $780.76.

His campaign then said he accidentally submitted some duplicate contributions. Nearly a month later, it hasn’t amended the filing to show which transactions were real.

And as New York Focus reported, the Blakeman campaign submitted requests to receive matching funds for 2,600 donations that were ineligible for matches.

From the Capitol

Early voting turnout is surging all over the state.

THE WEEKEND TURNOUT: Early voting turnout has skyrocketed in every corner of the state, according to unofficial tallies provided by the state Board of Elections.

On the first two days of early voting in 2022, 261,735 people cast a ballot. This weekend, that number increased to 485,205 — a jump of roughly 85 percent.

The biggest increases were in the North Country — particularly in the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Elise Stefanik, which is now a battleground district for the first time in over a decade. Washington County’s weekend turnout was up 236 percent from four years ago. Early voting increased 196 percent in St. Lawrence County, 182 percent in Warren County, and 179 percent in Herkimer County.

The smallest gains were in the Hudson Valley. That was especially true in the district held by Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, where early turnout was the highest in the state four years ago as Ryan won his first full term in a nail-biter. His race isn’t widely viewed as competitive this year, and the smallest increase among the state’s 62 counties was in Ulster, which was up only 41 percent relative to 2022.

There were also relatively middling gains in Erie County (up 60 percent) and Nassau County (up 64 percent). Those are the places where New York’s two gubernatorial candidates live, perhaps indicating that neither is yet the beneficiary of any outpourings of hometown pride. — Bill Mahoney

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Rep. Mike Lawler campaigned from behind a McDonald's window in Haverstraw.

ORDER’S UP: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler spent part of this afternoon working at McDonald’s in Haverstraw – a potential backup job “if things don’t work out in November,” he said while putting on his uniform. Lawler is in the final campaign stretch in one of the country’s most closely watched congressional battlegrounds against Democrat Cait Conley.

The lawmaker spent his McDonald’s shift cooking food, handing out orders and speaking with constituents – one of whom openly admitted to voting against him before taking their food and driving off. Aside from that one outlier, customers gave Lawler a warm reception at the drive-thru window. The visit was seemingly part of an effort to make inroads in Haverstraw, a town that leans Democratic.

Lawler told Blue Light News he’s feeling confident going into the final days of his campaign, but insisted that he is an underdog in the Hudson Valley district. In the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris and Lawler each won the district.

“I feel very good about where we are heading on Election Day. Eight days from now, we’re going to win because I’ve done the work,” Lawler said in an interview. “I’ve delivered for my district, and the people here know me. I’m from here; I’ve lived here my whole life, I know the community..”

And for those wondering about Lawler’s go-to McDonald’s order: double quarter-pounder with cheese, a Coke and a four-piece McNugget. — Katelyn Cordero

STUMPING SPRINT: Fresh off a weekend of enthusiastic campaigning for Gov. Kathy Hochul, the mayor addressed reporters at a press conference this morning.

He stuck to his rhetoric touting the governor as a champion for affordable child care and lampooning her GOP foe Bruce Blakeman as a Trump puppet.

The mayor was also pressed about whether he expects something in return for all the campaigning he’s been doing for Hochul — such as increased taxes on the rich, a top goal for Mamdani and his democratic socialist allies in the state Legislature.

“I’m expecting a continuation of a positive and productive working relationship with the governor,” he said. “I’m excited for that relationship to continue. It’s been one that’s delivered for working class New Yorkers, and I’m confident it’s going to keep delivering.”

It’s far from an explicit commitment, but it suggests he’ll continue pushing Hochul for tax hikes should she win reelection — something City Council Speaker Julie Menin told POLITICO she would support to bankroll child care programs earlier this month.

Mamdani also repeatedly mentioned the importance of showing New Yorkers that a mayor and a governor can have a productive working relationship — an apparent dig at the storied feud between former Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“New Yorkers across the five boroughs are excited about us finally working together, where they haven’t seen mayors and governors do that often in the past to be able to deliver on common sense things,” he said. — Molly Reinmann

FROM CITY HALL

Mamdani's chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church (center) laid out the administration's governing philosophy at a forum today.

GRAND PLANS: Mamdani’s chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church laid out the democratic socialist administration’s governing philosophy today — including its opposition to means-testing for government programs.

“We look especially to universal social programs, facilitating forms of collective ownership, supporting the growth of unions. In short, creating shared economic security and stability through material programs,” Bisgaard-Church said at an event on Mamdani’s affordability agenda hosted by the New York City Policy Forum, a left-leaning research and publishing network. “On the contrary, means-tested programs segregate and encumber people.”

She pointed to other periods in the city’s history that saw “rich public institutions that could compete with the private sector,” citing NYCHA, the MTA and CUNY. Public housing, in particular, has seen significant deterioration in recent decades amid federal disinvestment. Reversing that trajectory is one of the most pressing issues Mamdani faces as mayor.

“Today we are governed by rules of austerity and face a withered welfare regime, means-tested policies, decayed public sector, and weakened public institutions,” Bisgaard-Church continued. “These are the political realities our administration wants to overturn, and we know that tackling the crushing cost of living is again key to doing so.”

The event drew other top Mamdani officials including Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg, Economic Development Corporation Chair Lina Khan, and Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Sam Levine. — Janaki Chadha

IN OTHER NEWS

— HOMELESSNESS: Mamdani’s early efforts to address a ballooning homelessness problem in the city have largely failed, community leaders allege. (The Wall Street Journal)

— SUNNYSIDE YARD: Housing experts weighed in on the outlandishly high cost of Mamdani and Trump’s proposed development at Sunnyside Yard. (The City Reporter)

— BK DEMS: There are four state legislative seats Democrats are looking to flip in southern Brooklyn this midterm cycle, a fact that has largely been overshadowed by the party’s drama-packed leadership succession saga. (City & State)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

Politics

Why Dems’ late House reaches don’t usually pan out

Published

8 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats are pushing into redder and redder territory. History shows those last-minute moves don’t usually pan out, even in favorable cycles.

Since 2018, Democrats haven’t flipped any Republican-held seat that was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” list in the September or October before Election Day, according to a Blue Light News analysis. Of the 28 total candidates from 2018 to 2024 that were added in the final two months of the campaign, just three Democrats won — all in Democratic-held open seats.

That’s a much lower rate than average Red to Blue performance. Out of 203 candidates added to the program in the four previous cycles, 73 flipped their seats.

That’s not a shock: The DCCC tends to add the biggest reaches later as it moves through the cycle, both to make sure its best opportunities are funded first and have enough attention and to try to create a sense of momentum and map expansion for donors and the media.

In fact, the DCCC used some of the seats in their latest round of additions in a recent fundraising plea sent out by Executive Director Julie Merz, who warned that without more cash the committee “could be leaving winnable races on the table.”

But it illuminates how hard it is — even in the best of environments — to reach deep into red territory in order to flip House seats. And it’s especially true now, as the House battlefield has shrunk significantly since 2018 because of gerrymandering.

Since the beginning of September, the DCCC has added nine Democrats to Red to Blue: independent Bill Hill in AK-AL; Will Lawrence in MI-07; Mitchell Berman in WI-01; Chris Jones in AR-02; Dwayne Romero in CO-03; Eliott Rodriguez in FL-27; Teresa Benitez-Thompson in NV-02; Blake Gendebien in NY-21; and Justin Pearson in TN-09.

Democrats acknowledge these late additions are a low-percentage play. Former DCCC staffer Cole Leiter, who worked there for the 2018 and 2020 cycles, said the committee recruits and tracks reach-district candidates early in the cycle with hopes the political winds will shift their way.

“That is an investment in the unpredictability of the map,” Leiter said. “Most of these seats probably won’t flip, but one or two might.”

Regardless of whether or not Democrats ultimately win the seats they’ve added late this year (the DCCC added six deep-red targets to Red to Blue in early October) — the additions alone contribute to a narrative of a party on offense. And they can also be a boon for fundraising for those specific candidates as well as to entice donors with exactly which areas their dollars will go if they pony up.

“Even if there’s ultimately not a massive success rate in those final editions, it is not a bad thing to make sure that those campaigns have any last-minute dollars that the designation can bring,” said Meredith Kelly, a former DCCC staffer who worked the 2016 and 2018 cycles. “Just make sure that they have a surfboard in the water and have an ability to potentially take advantage of a really, really good night.”

This cycle’s late-add Democrats are almost all facing cash disadvantages against their incumbent GOP opponents. Of the nine Democrats added within the past two months, only one — Benitez-Thompson, running against Republican David Flippo — has reported more cash on hand than their opponent. Five of them are facing fundraising deficits of over $1 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Democrats’ poor record in these seats is somewhat self-selecting — seats added to the program late in the cycle reflect the fact that Democrats weren’t initially convinced they could be flipped.

Whitney Fox, who lost by 9 points to GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna in FL-13 in 2024 and was among the last Democrats to be added to Red to Blue when she was picked in late September, said her campaign suffered from the delay in adding her to the program, even as she acknowledged the DCCC is forced to make strategic decisions with limited resources.

The late additions also limit the window that candidates can capitalize on the program’s benefits. After initially being told she wouldn’t be added and after what she said was months of making her case to the DCCC, Fox made the list just before Hurricane Milton devastated the Tampa area, which she said made it difficult to fundraise off her newly minted Red to Blue status.

“I felt like it was too little, too late,” she said.

The Democrat running against Luna this cycle, Leela Gray, was added to Red to Blue in late August. Fox, who is informally advising local Florida candidates this cycle, said she offered Gray advice on how to make the list early.

“I was a squeaky wheel trying to talk to leadership and Democratic members of Congress, and then it got to a certain point where I was no longer the squeaky wheel,” she said she relayed to Gray. “I was going to take the spoke off the wheel and hit people over the head with it.”

Still the DCCC believes this cycle will be different, history be damned. And if recent national polling showing them with a double-digit lead in the generic ballot is correct, some of these late additions might break through.

“Records are meant to be broken,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement. “We’re on track to break them this year because across the battlefield, we’ve got amazing recruits and the enthusiasm to fire House Republicans for making life unaffordable is off the charts.”

A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to Blue Light News Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.