By STEVE PEOPLES, AP National Political Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Democrat Abigail Spanberger is more eager to talk about struggling soybean farmers than President Donald Trump’s attack on American institutions. She plays down the historic nature of her campaign for Virginia governor and avoids making big, bold promises about what she will accomplish if elected.
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Yet some believe the moderate approach — others call it boring — that the former congresswoman and CIA case officer has taken heading into Tuesday’s election holds the key to the Democratic Party’s national revival.
“Don’t promise things you know you can’t deliver,” Spanberger said aboard her bus campaigning this week to be the state’s first female governor. It was a sober warning to Democratic leaders across the country — New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and former President Joe Biden among them.
It may be an underwhelming message for the millions of angry voters who have flocked to anti-Donald Trump protests in recent weeks demanding that Democratic leaders take bold action to fight the Republican’s norm-busting presidency. But as the Democratic Party searches for an effective message and messengers in the wake of last fall’s Election Day drubbing, Spanberger is offering a pragmatic focus on economic concerns and a toned-down pledge to address Trump’s most damaging policies, when possible.
That tack is in line with a growing group of Democratic governors, top party operatives and Mikie Sherrill, the New Jersey congresswoman and former Navy helicopter pilot who is the only other Democratic gubernatorial hopeful on the ballot next week. They are betting big that a centrist message aimed at voters’ economic concerns will deliver victory where an intense focus on stopping Trump from unraveling American democracy failed in 2024.
The Republican nominees in Virginia and New Jersey, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Trump-endorsed former business owner and state legislator Jack Ciattarelli, have tried to paint their Democratic opponents as out-of-touch liberals more concerned about transgender rights and immigrants who are in the United States illegally than they are about the safety of school children.
That playbook worked for Trump in the last presidential election. But given the national security backgrounds of Spanberger and Sherrill, it is unclear whether that will work Tuesday.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has campaigned alongside Spanberger and Sherrill over the past week, noted that both candidates have focused on rising costs while offering a clear contrast to the chaos that has consumed Trump’s Washington. It’s largely the same approach that Shapiro has taken as he gears up for a 2026 reelection campaign in the swing state before a possible 2028 presidential bid.
“The lesson is winning,” Shapiro said when asked about whether the approach reflects lessons learned from Democrats’ struggles in 2024.
Democratic divisions loom
The Democratic Party is far from united on how to move forward.
Just as Spanberger and Sherrill embrace moderation, progressive leaders such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have lined up behind Mamdani, who is also on the ballot Tuesday. The self-described democratic socialist has called for government-run grocery stores, free public transit and rent freezes, among other policies that may be difficult to enact if he wins.
Mamdani is in an increasingly caustic race with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani.
“The socialists want to take over the Democratic Party,” Cuomo said in a weekend radio interview. “He wins, book airline tickets for Florida now.”
But some Democratic voters, even some who came out to hear Spanberger’s message in Virginia this week, say they are excited about Mamdani.
Mikal Blount, a 31-year-old commercial window cleaner, joined dozens of voters at a Norfolk restaurant on Sunday to see Spanberger. He said he is impressed by her bipartisan approach and experience in law enforcement, but he also hopes Mamdani wins and emerges as a national star.
“It’s OK to have moderates create common ground and progressives who are down to fight,” he said, expressing frustration with his party’s leaders in Washington. “I’m like what are we doing? We’re not hitting back. MAGA Republicans aren’t holding back, so why are we?” — referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
Spanberger was less enthusiastic about Mamdani’s emergence.
In an interview, Spanberger said she fears his approach could push people away from the party, but not necessarily because of his most controversial policies, even those she disagrees with. She sees it as a matter of telling the truth.
“We should always, always, always, dream big. It’s not a focus on, just do little things,” she said. “But if he’s making promises that he can’t keep to people who are struggling to put food on the table for their kids or to pay their bus fare to get to their second job of the day, then what’s the long term impact on the people who put their faith in somebody?”
Spanberger offered a similar criticism of Biden’s campaign promises to cancel student debt.
“We wonder why people are like, ‘Oh, I’m tired of voting for the Democrats.’” she said. “If you were to talk to people about canceling debt, a number of people will express some level of, ‘He didn’t do what he said he was going to do.’ Well, he was never going to be able to do that, right?”
A move to the middle
A collection of Democratic operatives released a report this week, “Deciding to Win: Toward a Common Sense Renewal of the Democratic Party,” that effectively endorses Spanberger’s approach.
The report features input from top advisers to Biden, former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris. It calls on Democratic candidates to reject progressive purity tests and talk less about democracy, climate change and far-left cultural priorities and more about health care, the cost of living and public safety.
Veteran Democratic operative Jesse Ferguson, who provided input, said Spanberger is doing well because she’s “able to connect the pain from Washington to the pockets in Virginia.”
“Trump’s authoritarianism will fail — not because we convince people it’s authoritarian, but because we show them it’s expensive,” Ferguson said.
Spanberger has not attended any of the “No Kings” protests that have featured millions of anti-Trump voters concerned with the threat he poses to U.S. democracy. She rarely said his name on a statewide bus tour this week that took her from Virginia’s affluent suburbs in the north to its military base communities on the Eastern Shore and the Appalachian hills in the rural southwest.
“I feel like if I say it too much, it’s like Beetlejuice. He’s gonna show up,” Spanberger joked.
This election, she said, is more about the struggles of everyday voters than Trump’s attack on democracy.
“When we win, it’s repudiation of the policies that are harming Virginia, whether it’s the shutdown, DOGE, or tariffs,” Spanberger said. “Like one guy like is single-handedly crushing Virginia soybean farmers, like one guy is single-handedly raising input costs for fertilizer and for farm equipment.”
Another topic Spanberger does not mention much: the possibility of becoming the first woman elected governor in Virginia.
“I’m delighted that we will have a woman governor. I’m delighted by the fact that when the next generation of candidates step forward, it’s not, ‘Oh, do you think a woman can win?’” she said. “It’s very significant to other people. But I don’t want to ever make the race about me.”
