The Abigail Spanberger Bait-and-Switch

During the 2025 gubernatorial election the voters of Virginia believed they were choosing between pragmatic Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger and lackluster Republican Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. The former was well funded and portrayed favorably by the corporate “news” media as a centrist, while the latter struggled to raise money and was labeled an extremist because of her strong support of gun rights. In the end, Spanberger won by double digits, and most Virginians thought they were getting a slightly more liberal governor than her predecessor, Glenn Youngkin. Yet the moment she took office, it became obvious that Gov. Spanberger was no moderate.

Immediately upon assuming office, she signed an executive order that reversed her predecessor’s policy whereby state and local law enforcement were required to cooperate with federal immigration authorities to detain illegal aliens convicted of criminal offences. This order sent a clear message that Spanberger viewed immigration through the ideological lens of far-left Democrats like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz rather than the moderate perspective she espoused during the election. She didn’t deign to tell Virginia’s voters how limiting cooperation with DHS would protect them and their families from criminals who are in the country illegally. Instead, she recited the tired shibboleths echoed in every sanctuary state:

Ultimately, I am looking to every step forward that we can take as a commonwealth to ensure that our communities are safe and protected … Frankly, the fear and concern that we’ve seen in other places where people without any sort of designation — unannounced, wearing masks — are taking people off the streets, the level of fear that that’s created and the level of distrust and confusion is certainly not contributing to any strengthening of our communities, let alone keeping our communities safer.

Spanberger further revealed her far-left ideological governing philosophy when she moved to bring Virginia back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). As the American Energy Alliance explains, “RGGI is a regional cap-and-trade program in the Northeast that requires power plants to buy “allowances” to emit carbon dioxide. These allowance costs are naturally passed on to the consumer, inevitably raising electricity prices.” Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin had pulled the Old Dominion out of RGGI. According to Youngkin, from the time the state originally joined RGGI until the time it finally pulled out in 2024, the Commonwealth’s residents paid $828 million in a regressive interstate tax imposed via their electricity bills.