As two dozen volunteers prepared to knock doors on an unseasonably warm afternoon in late October, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger reminded them that their work helped flip her battleground House seat in 2018. She predicted it would pay off again for Virginia Democrats this year.
“It is how we have won in hard races across Virginia and across the country, and it is certainly why I feel confident that we are on the right path headed towards November 7,” Spanberger said, speaking to campaign volunteers in a sunny parking lot in Manassas.
Spanberger has played an active role in boosting Virginia Democrats’ hopes for election day, as the party looks to flip control of the house of delegates and maintain their majority in the state senate. The stakes are high: Republicans would achieve a legislative trifecta in Richmond if they take control of the state senate, allowing them to enact controversial policies like banning abortion after 15 weeks and limiting access to the ballot box.
With her carefully crafted political persona as a centrist Democrat, Spanberger may be the right person to deliver her party’s closing message in the final stretch of the campaign. In Manassas, Spanberger laid out her vision for how Virginia Democrats would succeed on 7 November, saying: “There is nothing more important than helping people believe that the policies and the government – whether it be in Richmond or on Capitol Hill – that they want is possible.”
The results on Tuesday could affect Spanberger’s own future as well; the congresswoman has reportedly told multiple people that she intends to run for governor in the battleground state. If she is successful, her victory would allow Democrats to take back the Virginia governorship, which is now held by Republican Glenn Youngkin, in 2025.
For now, Spanberger has declined to confirm those plans, insisting she remains laser-focused on this year’s crucial elections.
“I have enjoyed spending time with people who are in the voting mindset,” Spanberger said in August. “As for anything that I might do in the future, I’m not going to make any announcements until after November.”
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Spanberger first won election to the US House of Representatives in 2018, capitalizing on her experience as a former CIA officer turned organizer for the gun safety group Moms Demand Action to sway voters concerned about Donald Trump’s leadership. Winning her 2018 race by just two points, Spanberger unseated a Republican incumbent, Dave Brat, who had defeated his last Democratic opponent by 15 points two years earlier.
Spanberger joined a freshman House class dominated by Democrats, part of the “blue wave” that helped the party take control of the chamber for the first time in eight years.
“She was one of these what I call the ‘national security Democrats’ that were elected in 2018,” said Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report. “I think she still retains that sort of more moderate pragmatic profile, with especially a focus on national security.”
Despite Republicans’ repeated efforts to oust Spanberger, the congresswoman has held on to her seat through two hard-fought re-election campaigns. Running in a newly redrawn district in 2022, Spanberger won her race by roughly five points, her largest victory to date. She has also proved herself to be an impressive fundraiser, bringing in nearly $9m in 2022.
Over her three terms in Congress, she has developed a reputation as a centrist able to collaborate with Democrats and Republicans alike, as she has advocated for bipartisan initiatives like a ban on House members trading individual stocks and increased funding for police departments. Spanberger enjoys reminding voters that she was named the most bipartisan elected official in Virginia by the non-profit Common Ground Committee.
But even as she cultivates a reputation as a pragmatic centrist, Spanberger has been careful to avoid alienating her more progressive constituents through her consistent support of the social issues that remain important to the Democratic base. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund has given Spanberger a score of 100% on its congressional scorecard, as has the LGBTQ+ rights group Human Rights Campaign. Spanberger, who highlighted her work with Moms Demand Action during her first campaign, has also received endorsements from anti-gun violence groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords.
This delicate political balance frustrates her Republican rivals, who argue the congresswoman’s voting record proves she is not the centrist she makes herself out to be.
“She does campaign as a moderate. Her language is moderate in tone,” said Rich Anderson, chairman of the Republican party of Virginia. “But she votes as a pretty progressive liberal out on the left edge of the spectrum.”
The moments when Spanberger has publicly clashed with her party have been rare and notable. She opposed the election of Nancy Pelosi as House speaker in 2019 and 2021, a significant but ultimately inconsequential vote as Pelosi still won the gavel. Spanberger also made headlines in 2020, when the Washington Post reported that she lashed out against progressive colleagues in a phone call focused on Democrats’ losses in key House races. Lamenting the defeat of several centrist Democrats in battleground states, Spanberger reportedly said: “We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again … We lost good members because of that.”
“She’s been very careful to pick and choose where she goes against her party,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. “It’s worked for her. That’s the bottom line. It has worked and given her a lot of encouragement that she could run an effective statewide campaign, and that remains to be seen.”
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As speculation has intensified over her statewide ambitions, Spanberger has made a point to keep her attention on the elections happening this year, crisscrossing the state to promote Democratic candidates.
“We want legislators who are focused on the issues that matter,” Spanberger told a crowd of roughly 120 people in rural Orange, Virginia, in August. “We want people in elected and representative offices who are going out and talking to the people that they represent, who are advocating for the issues that matter.”
Candidates and voters at the Orange event applauded Spanberger’s seemingly ubiquitous presence in her district. Jason Ford, a former campaign staffer for Spanberger who is now running for a seat on the state senate, recalled a running joke that no one knew where the congresswoman lived in the district because she always seemed to be out on the campaign trail speaking to voters.
“She’s willing to show up in every part of the district,” Ford said. “She has consistently shown that hard work, commitment to the people and genuinely caring about the issues that they care about is what it takes to be a good representative.”
That approach has won her many fans among Democrats in her district. “She just cares about Virginia. She cares about the things that Virginians care about and not what Youngkin and his crowd think Virginians care about,” said Kate Handley, a 57-year-old from Gordonsville.
Bill Maiden, a 58-year-old voter and former Republican from Culpepper, added: “She actually goes out, meets people and does what she says – reaches across the aisle, gets things done … That’s exactly what we need out of a politician.”
Spanberger’s constituents voiced optimism about her potential gubernatorial campaign, even as they expressed dismay about the possibility of her leaving the House.
“I’d hate to lose her in Congress, but I think she would be a fantastic governor,” said Lynn Meyers, a 78-year-old voter from Locust Grove. “She’s on point. She’s realistic. She’s fair. She’s not like a loose cannon like so many of our folks in politics are today.”
But any statewide campaign will have to wait until after the legislative elections next week, which could be instructive for Spanberger and other Virginia politicians weighing their future plans. If Republicans are successful on Tuesday, it may encourage candidates in the Youngkin mold to jump into the gubernatorial race, although experts emphasize that it is too early to get a clear sense of the 2025 field.
“It’s essentially impossible to handicap the field before we even know how these elections turn out next week and who is running,” Taylor said.
On the Republican side, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, and the state’s attorney general, Jason Miyares, have been named as potential candidates, given that Youngkin is term-limited. Spanberger may also face a rocky road to the Democratic nomination, as Richmond’s mayor, Levar Stoney, has been widely expected to jump into the primary.
“My guess is that much of the commentary will focus on her as the centrist candidate and the mayor as the more progressive one,” Rozell said. “That could be a danger point for her, given the low turnout in primaries and the propensity of the more liberal wing of the party to dominate turnout in low-turnout primaries.”
Spanberger could forgo a gubernatorial campaign and instead focus on holding her battleground district in 2024, which may bolster her party’s prospects of regaining control of the US House next year. But given Spanberger’s packed campaign schedule over the past few months, Anderson believes there is little question of her future plans.
“She is spending a lot of time if not on the road at least making public statements in support of legislative candidates who have been nominated by the Democratic party all around the state, so that tells me that’s exactly where she’s going,” Anderson said. “I think probably within a reasonable period of time after November 7, we’ll have the answer to the question.”
Although 2025 is more than a year away, at least one of Spanberger’s admirers is already looking beyond the governor’s mansion.
“I could see her as president someday. I really could,” said Willow Drinkwater, an 82-year-old voter from Gordonsville. “Because she brings people together. She’s a consensus-maker.”
