{"id":20573,"date":"2026-03-26T09:01:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/abigail-spanberger-faces-a-national-test-with-virginia-redistricting\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:01:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:01:53","slug":"abigail-spanberger-faces-a-national-test-with-virginia-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/abigail-spanberger-faces-a-national-test-with-virginia-redistricting\/","title":{"rendered":"Abigail Spanberger faces a national test with Virginia redistricting"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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 \u2014 and hurting their chances for flipping the House this November.<\/p>\n

The aggressive effort to redraw the state\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With less than one month to go, nearly a dozen Democratic state lawmakers, strategists and candidates say Spanberger \u2014 Virginia\u2019s popular Democratic governor who cruised to victory by double-digits last November \u2014 needs to step up more assertively to sell the referendum to voters. And they\u2019re warning that she\u2019ll bear the brunt of the blame if the effort fails.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that she\u2019s doing nothing: Spanberger has endorsed the referendum and launched an ad supporting it this week<\/a>, her first of the campaign, as Blue Light News first reported. But critics say it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d 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 \u201chelpful\u201d for Spanberger \u201cto be the spokesperson on redistricting because she did so well and won by so much\u201d in 2025.<\/p>\n

Prior to her inauguration, Spanberger, who campaigned as a moderate focused on affordability for Virginians, stopped short of fully embracing<\/a> 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 \u2014 or other Democratic governors who have pushed for gerrymanders in their states, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n

The stakes are high for Spanberger: A loss on redistricting could impact her rising star status on the national stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could she watch what Gavin Newsom just did and do the exact opposite?\u201d asked a Democratic activist in Virginia who has worked closely with the pro-redistricting campaign and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cOut in the field, we really don\u2019t know whether she is for or against this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spanberger\u2019s team argues she\u2019s been fighting hard for the new map.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t a Democrat in Virginia who has done more to encourage voters to support this referendum than Governor Spanberger,\u201d Libby Wiet, a spokesperson for Spanberger, said in a statement. \u201cShe\u2019s a particularly effective messenger because she\u2019s meeting voters where many of them are \u2014 Virginians who supported the bipartisan commission in 2020 but understand that the ballgame changed when the President claimed he\u2019s \u2018entitled\u2019 to more Republican seats in Congress, and states got to work to give them to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virginia is not nearly as deeply blue as California is, and many of the state\u2019s 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 \u201cyes\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adding confusion to the Democrats\u2019 push is the Virginia Supreme Court, which has reserved the right<\/a> to potentially nullify the redistricting push after the April election.<\/p>\n

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>. A separate survey<\/a> from January found a slight majority, 51 percent, supported the Democratic-backed push to redraw lines.<\/p>\n

Spanberger\u2019s defenders push back on the need for the governor to step in as a central figure of the \u201cyes\u201d campaign. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no one person that has to carry the weight alone,\u201d said K\u00e9ren Charles Dongo, the campaign manager Virginia for Fair Elections, which has amassed more than $33 million in donations<\/a> and is working to mobilize voters.<\/p>\n

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, one of the architects of the redistricting push, has vehemently rejected the comparisons of Spanberger to Newsom \u2014 and the need for her to hold more rallies or meet and greets around the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe’s only been on a job freaking 70 days,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’re gonna be fine. I feel very confident that we’re gonna win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s seven-figure ad buy this week featured her speaking directly to camera about her party\u2019s \u201ctemporary\u201d effort to redraw lines and slamming \u201cTrump\u2019s Redistricting War.\u201d Dongo\u2019s group has also been blanketing the airwaves and social media with ads, including one featuring former President Barack Obama<\/a> telling Virginians they have a \u201cchance to level the playing field\u201d 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 \u201cyes\u201d voters closer to Election Day.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s easier if there’s somebody who’s a central person,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Virginia conservatives have been lambasting Spanberger on social media, essentially making her the face of their anti-redistricting campaign. They\u2019ve slammed her for reversing her stance on redistricting and caving to pressure from state and national Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbigail Spanberger seems to be intent on trying to turn Virginia into California east, so she probably will welcome Gavin Newsom,\u201d 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><\/p>\n

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\u2019s a flip-flopper on the gerrymander issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad they spoken in opposition to [Trump\u2019s] efforts, I would perhaps take their level of consternation with a bit more seriousness,\u201d Spanberger said. \u201cIt wasn’t until their individual House seats seemed in doubt \u2026 that they decided to have any opposition to redistricting.\u201d<\/p>\n

That retort was insufficient for some Virginia Democrats, who were frustrated that Spanberger didn\u2019t hit back even harder \u2014 or use the opportunity, on the heels of casting her \u201cyes\u201d ballot, to forcefully rebuke the misleading mailers<\/a> Republican-aligned groups have circulated that suggest she is a \u201cno\u201d vote on redistricting.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is certainly not 1,000 percent on board,\u201d said a Democratic official granted anonymity to speak candidly about how they view the governor\u2019s involvement. The person suggested the Democratic-led \u201cyes\u201d 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\u2019t fail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it goes down,\u201d the official said, \u201c[Spanberger] is gonna own it [so she] might as well go out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2014 and hurting their chances for flipping the House this November. The aggressive effort to redraw the state\u2019s congressional maps, if voters approve the referendum, could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}