Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, was quick to pounce when
President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico last week in an on-again, off-again trade war that has given consumers and financial markets the jitters. “This plan is a tax on Virginians,” Spanberger declared in a news release early on March 4, before Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears , the leading Republican candidate in the election for governor this fall, said nothing. The next day, her campaign said it wouldn’t comment on the tariff issue. The tables turned over the weekend, when the University of Virginia Board of Visitors — now dominated by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees, voted unanimously to dissolve the school’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, an issue that has been a top target for Trump since his inauguration on Jan. 20. Youngkin and Earle-Sears celebrated the university’s reversal on policies to promote opportunities for minority students and faculty, which they characterized as discriminatory. “As an immigrant who came to this country as a little girl, it was the promise of equal opportunity and fairness that embodied the American Dream,” said Earle-Sears, a native of Jamaica who would be the first Black woman elected governor of any U.S. state. Spanberger, a white Henrico County resident and three-term congresswoman who also is trying to make history as the first woman elected governor of Virginia, initially did not comment publicly, however, a spokesperson told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “As an alumna of the University of Virginia, Abigail thinks this decision threatens the diverse and vibrant campus that makes UVA an extraordinary institution.”
Messaging around Trump
It’s still early March, three months ahead of potential party primaries and almost seven months before the general election, but both frontrunners in the governor’s race are trying to shape their respective messages around events unfolding rapidly in Washington, D.C., under Trump. “The main thing you want to avoid doing in March is saying things you’ve got to defend in the fall,” said Steve Farnsworth, a political scientist and director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. As a result, Spanberger and Earle-Sears are both “playing to their strengths,” observed Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in Northern Virginia. For Republicans, that means culture war issues, such as DEI, illegal immigration and transgender athletes in women’s sports. For Democrats, it’s the potential economic fallout from Trump’s trade wars and attacks on the federal government workforce and contracts that underpin the economy of Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and the Richmond area. DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, which “special government employee” Elon Musk leads, has become a primary target with his assaults on federal agencies, workers and, by extension, private contractors who depend on the federal spending the new administration is trying to cut. “While my opponent, as well as Virginia’s current Republican Governor, continue to praise DOGE’s cuts to the federal work force, Virginia families are sitting at home scared,” Spanberger said in a recent email fundraising appeal. Earle-Sears and Youngkin have resolutely backed Trump and Musk’s efforts, while expressing personal empathy for affected workers and offering to help them find new job opportunities in the private sector. “I have been in your shoes and I totally understand what it is to not know how the next paycheck is coming,” Earle-Sears said in a Feb. 22 video message on X, formerly Twitter, to Virginians who have lost their jobs. “I know it from being an employee and I also know it from being a small business owner.” Trump looms over both campaigns, which could pose a bigger challenge for Republicans in Virginia. From 2017 through 2020, during Trump’s first term, the GOP lost control of both chambers of the General Assembly and three seats in the state’s congressional delegation. Democrats also swept the 2017 contests for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, four years before Republicans swept all three offices a year into President Joe Biden’s term. Trump is 0-3 in elections in Virginia, including losing by more than 5 percentage points to then-Vice President Kamala Harris in November. “The challenge is that Trump has never been a winner in Virginia,” said Bob Holsworth, a veteran political scientist in Richmond and former dean of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. Unlike four years ago, after Biden won the presidency, Republicans also are on the wrong side of the so-called “Virginia curse,” in which the party that wins the White House almost always loses the contest for Virginia’s Executive Mansion a year later. Analysts say Trump’s tariff policies risk reigniting inflation and in a Sunday interview the president
did not rule out a recession , though he said Tuesday that he
doesn’t see a recession “at all.” “Washington Republicans often create a minefield for Virginia Republicans,” said Farnsworth at the University of Mary Washington. This year, that minefield includes “how to talk or not to talk about federal cutbacks and now to talk or not to talk about trade wars,” he said. Spanberger appears to face no opposition for the Democratic nomination, while Earle-Sears could have two opponents for the Republican nomination — former Del. Dave LaRock, R-Loudoun, and former Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, if they can get the necessary signatures to qualify for the ballot. Both rely on distrust of the lieutenant governor among the “Make America Great Again” base because of
her public suggestion in November 2022 that Trump had become a liability for the party. Earle-Sears “can’t afford any real criticism of Trump without potentially offending Republicans and causing problems in her primary contest,” Farnsworth said.
A Trump bump?
Youngkin has fully embraced Trump after keeping him at arm’s length for three years. Earle-Sears also is now a vocal Trump supporter. Analysts said Youngkin could help convince Trump to endorse Earle-Sears as the GOP’s best chance to win the state. “That would be a significant shift in the election,” said Chris Saxman, a former Republican delegate from Staunton who served with Earle-Sears in the House of Delegates and led her transition team after her election as lieutenant governor. Saxman is executive director of Virginia FREE, a pro-business organization with a sharp eye on state politics. Spanberger appears to have fended off a potential challenge for the Democratic nomination from Rep. Bobby Scott, D-3rd, dean of Virginia’s congressional delegation, who was the first Black congressman elected in Virginia since John Mercer Langston in the late 19th century. Still, she “has to reinforce her support” among Black Virginians, said Larry Sabato, president of the Center for Politics at UVa. “She can’t take a chance at alienating Black voters at all.” While Spanberger initially stayed silent about the DEI issue at her alma mater, Sabato also noted that the Youngkin-controlled board of visitors waited until students left for spring break to change its policy on diversity initiatives. “Everybody was gone,” he said. Holsworth said that Youngkin, in particular, has tried to focus publicly on issues that could make Spanberger uncomfortable: deportation of illegal immigrants and crime — linking them whenever possible — and eliminating anything that looks like racial and gender preferences, including opposing transgender women competing in women’s athletics. “It seems to me that Youngkin is really shaping the Republican campaign more than she is,” Holsworth said. Spanberger has shifted her own campaign to focus on the federal workers, contractors and families who stand most to lose from Trump’s assault on government jobs and spending. She’s a former CIA officer and postal inspector general who, in her last term, represented a redrawn district with a heavy concentration of federal employees, contractors, active-duty military and veterans who could be directly affected by the ongoing cuts. She won three congressional races in swing districts by appealing to independent voters and now faces an election that might be defined by anger among Democrats. “I don’t think she needs to move left,” Holsworth said, “but she has to prove to Democrats that she’s a fighter.”
Photos: Scenes from Donald Trump's second inauguration
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