I hate to interrupt Virginia Democrats just when they’re singing another round of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” but if journalists don’t point out some of the potential dangers ahead, who will?
Every governor, and every legislative majority, face challenges. When we have a governor and a General Assembly of the same party, the political dangers are heightened because it’s very clear who’s in charge — you can no longer blame things on the other side.
Here are some of the potential pitfalls that Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger and the Democrats in the General Assembly will now face.
Legislative overreach
Democrats picked up 13 seats in the House of Delegates to expand their majority from 51-49 to 64-36, their biggest margin since the 1988-89 session, a time before some of the present legislators were even born. The Democrats who defeated Republicans were clearly more liberal than the incumbents they ousted, and they are definitely more liberal than those previous Democrats who commanded such a big majority nearly four decades ago. That means it’s safe to say this will be the most liberal House of Delegates ever. That may bring joy to Democrats — that’s a matter of political taste, but here’s the political reality. It’s often more difficult to have a large majority than a small one because a large majority often feels empowered to do things that a smaller majority might be hesitant to do. After all, wasn’t that what the election was about? The danger is legislative overreach.
Democrats had a House majority in 2020-2021 and moved quickly to enact a lot of goals — and then found themselves promptly voted out of power. Maybe those Democrats got ahead of public opinion, or maybe they just ran afoul of other trends that cut against them in 2021. Still, here are the numbers those 13 Democrats should keep in mind: They were elected in what is, by Virginia standards, a large turnout election because it corresponded with a governor’s race. They’ll need to run for reelection in 2027 in a smaller-turnout environment. They benefited this year from a blue wave — and also a Republican riptide of reduced turnout. We don’t know what the turnout trends will be two years from now, but they may not be so favorable to Democrats.
One line of thinking is carpe diem, seize the moment. Democrats have this big majority; use it! The other line of thinking is that if Democrats want to keep this big majority, or any majority at all, they’ll need to govern in such a way that they can still win in a lower-turnout election and with a potentially less favorable political environment. That approach argues for a certain degree of caution. House Speaker Don Scott has made it clear he favors the latter: “The word of the day now is ‘restraint,’” he said last week. “We can’t overreach.” How, though, does he define restraint? How does his caucus define it? More importantly, how do voters two years from now define it?
Democratic senators will want to be especially mindful of this. The Senate wasn’t on the ballot this year, so Democrats will have a narrow 21-19 majority in that chamber. Democratic senators will want to make sure that voters retain them, and perhaps expand their majority, come the 2027 elections.
Conflicts between the governor and the General Assembly
There’s a saying in Richmond: Governors come and go, but the legislature is forever. The meaning: Legislators often regard governors as simply fancy, but temporary, administrators; it’s legislators who think they really run the state. Over time, the priorities of Gov.-elect Spanberger and the priorities of General Assembly leaders may not be the same.
This can cut both ways. A governor may feel more ambitious than legislators, because a governor never has to worry about facing voters again. Or a governor may feel more cautious than legislators, because many of them now come from what amount to one-party districts, while the governor feels responsible for the whole state. In this particular set of circumstances, Spanberger may be more inclined to caution because she’ll want to make sure Democrats hold the Senate in Virginia’s midterms; otherwise, she can forget about getting anything done legislatively for the second half of her term.
Also of note: Spanberger never served in the General Assembly. That’s not unusual. Five of our last seven governors didn’t, either. Still, this will be a new dynamic all around and a place where things could get crosswise.
Conflicts with the Trump administration
Now here’s where things really get interesting. Spanberger may have won anyway, but one of the reasons she won so big was a reaction to President Donald Trump. In my post-election analysis last week, I cited 13 reasons why the election turned out the way it did; Trump was just one of those. Nationally, though, people probably aren’t focused on 12 of those reasons; they’re just focused on Trump.
The president is not exactly the most broad-minded fellow; he threatened to withhold funding for New York City if New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani as their mayor. They did anyway. Does there ever come a time when he decides to take things out on Virginia because it now has a Democratic governor? He’ll have plenty of opportunities if he wants to make an example out of Virginia. This need not take such a dramatic form as sending troops into Richmond or Norfolk to deal with crime. The state, under Youngkin, has applied for rural health funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but the decision on who gets what likely won’t come until Spanberger is in office. How will Virginia fare?
One thing we’ll be watching is the offshore wind farm that Dominion Energy is building off the coast of Virginia Beach. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.) Trump detests wind energy and has been trying to shut down offshore wind projects. It’s been reported that Youngkin had talked to the White House to spare the Dominion project. Trump might consider it too far along to interfere with, but anyone who makes predictions about Trump runs a risk of being wrong. His administration has investigated the University of Virginia (where it forced out the president) and George Mason University. A Trump-Spanberger conflict could come on some college campus. It won’t be in her interest to pick a fight, but you never know when Trump might consider it in his interest to pick one.
Right-to-work
Democrats in the General Assembly want to repeal the state law that forbids compulsory payment of union dues, popularly known as “right-to-work.” Spanberger has struck a more cautious tone, saying she’d only favor a partial repeal, although it’s hard to know what that means in practice. Democrats in the General Assembly will want to take advantage of their majorities to push repeal; Spanberger will likely face intense pressure from the business community to stop this on the grounds that it would make Virginia less competitive — and at a time when the state needs to rebuild its economy.
Energy prices
Spanberger ran on a theme of “affordability” and lowering costs — a perfect political theme when polls consistently showed that was voters’ top concern. As George Washington advised Alexander Hamilton in the musical: “Ah, winning was easy, young man; governing’s harder.”
Republicans ran on the cost of living in 2024 and did well — until prices didn’t go down. Once Spanberger is in office, she’ll own certain prices, regardless of whether she has anything to do with them or not. One flash point will be energy prices. They may go up for reasons that have nothing to do with Spanberger’s policies, but ratepayers likely won’t be inclined to study the nuances of energy pricing. They’ll just want to know why their bill is going up. (In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Spanberger blamed rising energy costs on “bad energy policies in some of our neighboring states that have driven up energy prices, particularly in Southwest Virginia.” She cited high prices in Southwest twice during her appearance.)
Energy is going to dominate a lot of legislative time over the next few years as Virginia grapples with how to produce more of it — even though nobody seems to want a power generation source near them. Many people in Southside don’t want more solar farms. Many people in Chesterfield County don’t want a proposed natural gas plant. Many people in Northern Virginia don’t want transmission lines (at least overhead ones). Somehow, the state’s got to figure out all that. In the meantime, anytime the price goes up, Republicans will blame Democrats — and ratepayers may well, too.
Spanberger asked for this job, and got it. Now come all the ways that things can go wrong.
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