POLL: Spanberger at 47%; Redistricting Foes Surge with Marginal Lead
The Washington Post/Schar School poll shows Spanberger as the most divisive Virginia governor of the modern era, while the D.C. driven redistricting push stalls.
On the question of affordability — the canard which propelled Spanberger into office as her core issue — Virginians are sounding off, with 64% of Virginians saying that her policies will either make things less affordable or have no change at all.
Good news as recent polling by the celebrated conservative strategist Rick Shaftan shows that the “no” vote on the redistricting amendment is holding on to a precarious yet strong one-point lead over the now $55 million poured into Virginia by outside groups to turn back non-partisan redistricting.
Will you (or did you) vote yes or no on the redistricting referendum?
YES 44.9 // 45.9 NO
Reasons for voting yes were to either equalize the playing field (19%) or because they hate or want to stop President Trump (17%). In contrast, the reasons for voting “no” were either that the amendment was not needed (17%), Democratic overreach (16%), or that the changes simply did not represent Virginians (11%).
Making matters slightly more worse for wear for Virginia Democrats, the “fairness” line appears to be working against them, as independents and liberals are all keying in to two salient facts: (1) that the amendment is most certainly not “restoring fairness” in any way with 10-1 maps, and (2) that the redistricting fiasco was indeed started by Democrats in New York — not Republicans in Texas.
Here Comes the Potomac Two-Step: Fake Right, Run Left
Tit-for-tat aside in the who-shot-John game of blame, what Shaftan is elucidating here is that the effort truly is a power grab, one recognized by both sides with the Democrats unsuccessfully trying to cloak the power grab as fairness and with the open suggestion that the effort might even be doing better if the Democrats were slightly more honest about their intentions.
Which brings us to this morning’s report from Axios detailing how Democratic leadership in Washington is looking to push away from the “woke” talking points that doomed their presidential aspirations in 2016 and 2024, ostensibly with Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) as the exemplar. The problem with this is that not only have Spanberger’s approval ratings cratered 10 points since her election in November, but she is instantly proving to be one of the most divisive personalities in Virginia politics, per the Washington Post-GMU Schar School:
The approval mark for Spanberger is 13 percentage points lower than the average for Virginia governors in Post polling since the 1990s. Her near-even split between approval and disapproval is a worse net approval rating than the early-term scores of her predecessors in previous Post polls. It is also slightly weaker than ratings of her immediate predecessor, Glenn Youngkin (R), in a Post-Schar School poll last fall, showing he ended his term with 50 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval. Unlike Spanberger, Youngkin had come into office with a very narrow victory.
A larger share of voters expressed strong disapproval of Spanberger’s performance than of her predecessors. Two-thirds say they either strongly approve (29 percent) or strongly disapprove (38 percent). Fewer than 6 in 10 felt strongly about Youngkin’s performance at any point in his tenure, with 28 percent strongly approving and 25 percent strongly disapproving in Post-Schar polling last September.
On the question of affordability — the canard which propelled Spanberger into office as her core issue — Virginians are sounding off, with 64% of Virginians saying that her policies will either make things less affordable or have no change at all:
More telling is Spanberger’s freefall among black voters, down to about two-thirds after enjoying a whopping 95% of their support in November.
Of course, Spanberger has found herself beleaguered not by Republican opposition as much as by infighting within her own caucus — accusing the governor not only of tepid and lukewarm support for the 10-1 redistricting effort, but on a myriad of other matters including the state budget, appointments to key positions within the administration, and most notably Senate Democrats who have junked up the agenda with proposed firearm bans, a kaleidoscope of bewildering tax increases, and the insistence of Senate Finance staff to walk back — in fact, break the Commonwealth’s word — a series of Memoranda of Understanding on data centers in an effort to generate more tax revenue.
Yet it is the volte face from Spanberger on redistricting — from enthusiastic supporter of non-partisan redistricting to overtly supporting an obvious and nakedly partisan power grab — which seems to have confirmed the suspicions of cynics and shocked the sensibilities of centrists, all despite Democrats having the winds of a mid-term election at their backs.
Not-So-Democratic Approaches from the Defenders of Democracy (TM)
Which gets us back to the honesty question.
Not just about the redistricting amendment question, which is patently unfair and flies in the face of the constitution (for democracy’s sake, so we are told). The method by which the Democrats have conducted themselves — the redistricting amendment phrasing, the infusion of over $50 million in dark money, the willingness to do the wrong thing despite knowing it is the wrong thing — all of it tarnishes the excuse “but Trump!” because it is precisely the thing Democrats said they didn’t approve of in the first place. Two wrongs make a right? Apparently so.
After decency was left to die on the ballot in November, the new pleas for decency getting a second chance seem late — though openly welcome stuff — in the offing. Yet what is apparent now is that Virginia Democrats have no patience for the decency they claimed to desire before the elections. In power, decency and civility go by the wayside. Complain about Trump’s crudity and excrementitious posts on TruthSocial all one pleases — the fact that Democrats are allowed to behave as Democrats so long as Republicans never behave like Democrats isn’t more than hypocritical and worse than intolerable. These are the facts, as gerrymandered lines designed to silence Republican voices in New England, New York, Maryland, Illinois, and California all put on display.
Spanberger has now unfortunately, whether by intention or being boxed in by a Democratically-controlled General Assembly, conceded the centrist position in favor of not just liberalism but a full-throated voice in favor of a highly divisive and politically unpopular progressive agenda.
Making matters worse, Spanberger’s refusal to debate former Governor George Allen is a mistake. It’s not that Spanberger isn’t good in a debate format — she clobbered then-Rep. Dave Brat in a format where the mercy rule was nearly invoked — but rather Spanberger’s team instinctively knows they are playing a losing hand. Allen has extended yet another offer to debate Spanberger where she can choose the moderator and the format, yet as of this writing the offer continues to be dismissed by the self-styled defenders of democracy.
Can Spanberger Recapture the Center?
Does Spanberger still have time to reverse course? Possibly — when the referenda goes down in flames and Spanberger can then scold her fellow Democrats into eschewing stupid in favor of the agenda Spanberger campaigned upon and Virginians voted to support. Placing one’s trust in the intellectual malleability of Senate Democrats is a dicey proposition at best.
Yet that light at the end of the tunnel is a flickering lantern in search of one honest politician. Spanberger may have campaigned as a centrist, but with the honeymoon ending, the function simply isn’t following the form.
Forget the dead canaries littering the floor; the candle and the myth of Spanberger’s centrism is rapidly going out, and the sigh of disappointment is in the spring air. Meanwhile, redistricting is already a referendum on the mendacity of Virginia Democrats writ large — Spanberger included.
Of course, there’s another two weeks of sparring involved right now, but all indications at present suggest that the Democrats are throwing bad money after bad money in an effort to produce a 10-1 environment where the present district lines all have at least three Virginia Republicans playing defense in a potential 9-2 outcome should the mid-terms become a tidal wave.
Seems like an awful lot of juice for very little squeeze. Then again, economics and affordability have never been strong suits on the left. Neither does it appear to be so in their immediate future in a very expensive and mishandled power grab.
SHAUN KENNEY is editor for The Republican Standard.