OPINION:
For a significant chunk of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s professional life, even her best friends had no idea what she did for a living.
That is what the first sentence of her biography on Britannica.com states: She served as a Central Intelligence Agency operative for eight years, beginning in the mid-2000s.
Even back then, undercover, her CIA career parallels how she got herself elected governor in November. In her role at the spy agency, it was routine to hide important things about herself.
Years later, as a politician, she continued the practice, concealing or outright lying about things she planned to do.
She won, and Virginians are now finding out what she was masking. It’s safe to say they are not altogether thrilled.
In a State Navigate poll released Wednesday, Ms. Spanberger’s net approval since October has declined significantly among voters across income groups, with 47% approving of her performance as governor and 47% disapproving. That’s striking for a politician who took office less than three months ago after a blowout 15-percentage-point victory.
Her anemic numbers are far worse than those of other recent Virginia governors from both parties, all of whom were significantly more popular at this point in their terms. Ms. Spanberger’s approval number is 13 percentage points below the average of her predecessors going back to the 1990s.
She is even 10 points behind the most recent Democrat, Ralph Northam, whose public career ended in disgrace after a surfaced photo showed him wearing either blackface or a full KKK outfit. (Of the two figures in the photo, Mr. Northam never acknowledged which one he was.)
University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato called the poll “stunning,” but in reality, it’s not hard to explain.
For one thing, Ms. Spanberger campaigned on a pledge to focus on “affordability” and to enact policies that reduce the cost of living in Virginia. Instead, when she got to the Governor’s Mansion, she locked arms with leftists in the legislature and adopted their radical agenda.
Virginians can see that their near future holds increased crime, widespread tax increases and radical social experimentation, and they don’t like it.
The other thing she did was embrace a dishonest and unfair gerrymandering scheme of the kind she once said was “detrimental to our democracy” and had promised not to pursue.
That plan involves a proposed redraw of the Virginia congressional map, moving it from a 6-5 split between Democrats and Republicans to one that favors Democrats 10-to-1.
In a state where 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris received less than 52% of the vote, Ms. Spanberger’s party would be awarded 91% of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Virginia voters will consider this in a referendum next week. If approved, it will blow up the nonpartisan redistricting commission that voters blessed just six years ago. Early voting on the issue started weeks ago.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted late last month tested opinions on the referendum, and it showed the Yes side with a slight (5-point) lead, 52-47. The data shows that voters who are opposed to the partisan gerrymander are more motivated, however, so the results can truly be described as too close to call.
Democrats plan to spend $50 million on advertising, dwarfing the opposition, indicating they know they have a hard sell to make to the people. There is also evidence of growing concern among Democrats, as some have anonymously complained in the press that Ms. Spanberger hasn’t done enough to promote the gerrymander vote.
Yet one glance at her poll numbers will tell you that voters already associate her closely with the referendum, and the results have not been good.
The Washington Post published a scathing editorial following up on the polling data, noting, “Spanberger has come across as a hypocrite, one of the characteristics voters most dislike about politicians.”
This is an important point because media heaped praise on Ms. Spanberger during her campaign for her relentless focus on the “affordability” message (now proved to be a lie). When she won, Democrats held her up as a model for how others should pose as moderates.
What’s funny is that even now, after she has been exposed as a lying hypocrite who masqueraded as a centrist, Democrats still talk about her as a good example to follow.
What they can’t see is that Ms. Spanberger proves there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat.
All of them are prisoners of the radical fringe of their party, no matter what they promise or how they act in their campaigns. If other Democratic candidates want to emulate Ms. Spanberger, then they should know that it will be difficult to be as coldly deceitful as she was in her campaign.
She was, after all, trained to lie by the CIA.
• Tim Murtaugh, a Virginia voter, is a Washington Times columnist and founder of Line Drive Public Affairs. He served as a senior adviser on the 2024 Trump campaign and as communications director on the 2020 Trump campaign.
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