U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger isn’t running for reelection in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, but she’s making her presence felt in a tight race that could determine party control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Democrat is running for governor next year, so she is counting on first-time candidate Eugene Vindman to hold the seat she is vacating after three terms.
Spanberger has been working publicly and privately to boost Vindman’s odds in a tossup election against Republican Derrick Anderson, whom Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is backing with big money in an effort to bolster a slim GOP majority in the chamber.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat who would likely become speaker in January if Democrats win the majority, will appear with Spanberger in the district for Vindman sometime this month to make clear the stakes in the election — a visit that Spanberger said arose from a conversation they had in the cloak room off the House chamber in September.
“I care deeply about the 7th,” she told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Thursday. “I worked really hard to flip it and hold it.”
“I want to see Hakeem Jeffries as speaker, and we need to win the 7th for him to be on the path to do that," she said.
High stakes for 2025
Spanberger sees the congressional election as “really separate” from her bid to become governor, but state political analysts say the outcome will reflect on her campaign next year. She is likely to face either Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who has also already declared her candidacy for governor, or Attorney General Jason Miyares, who is waiting until after the presidential election to announce a decision.
“Certainly, she’s lending her credibility to the [Vindman] campaign,” Steve Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, told the Times-Dispatch. “It would be a bad look for Democrats going into 2025 if Virginia Democrats can’t keep Virginia 7.”
At the same time, Farnsworth said, “the congresswoman has done everything possible to maximize the chance of a Democratic victory in that district.”
Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, noted “a good deal of angst in the Democratic Party” over her decision to leave the seat open to run for governor.
“She did take some risks,” Rozell told the Times-Dispatch.
Virginia Republican Chairman Rich Anderson, who is waiting for his party’s gubernatorial prospects to become clearer, said, “Politics is all about risk — acceptable risk.”
“We have a very formidable candidate, and they’re neck and neck,” the GOP chairman told the Times-Dispatch of the 7th District contest.
Spanberger said her approach to the 2025 election is to focus on “the here and now of 2024.”
She has served for the past two years as an adviser to Jeffries on winning “purple” swing districts, such as the 7th. She won two elections in the district’s previous incarnation, a traditionally Republican seat rooted in the Richmond suburbs, where she still lives.
She faced a big choice in 2022, after the Virginia Supreme Court approved a new political map that moved the 7th District into Northern Virginia — today more than 72% of registered voters in the district live in Prince William County and the city of Fredericksburg, with the remainder scattered throughout Albemarle, Caroline, Culpeper, Greene, King George, Madison, Orange, Spotsylvania, Stafford counties. She ran and won a third term, defeating Prince William Supervisor Yesli Vega by 4.6 percentage points by running up a margin of almost 29,000 votes in Vega’s own county.
The new district leans Democratic, but it’s far from a sure thing. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, carried the district by 5 percentage points in 2021. He stumped hard for Vega in 2022 and now, entering the final year of his term, has been campaigning for Anderson.
“Whose coattails are going to be longer?” asked Daniel Cortez, a politically independent Vietnam veteran in Stafford County, who supported the governor and was appointed to a national Hispanic advisory commission, initially by then-President Donald Trump and then by President Joe Biden.
Cortez thinks it’s Spanberger’s. He supported her two years ago after his preferred candidate, state Sen. Bryce Reeves, an Orange County Republican, finished third behind Vega and Anderson in the Republican primary. He’s not sure whom he will support in the election, but said it won’t be Anderson.
“She has a tremendous following with women,” he told the Times-Dispatch, “and [abortion rights] is really going to be the key issue.”
Cortez, who is of Mexican descent, said Spanberger also has done a good job in cultivating political independents, military veterans and members of the Hispanic community.
“She has not alienated large groups of the population,” he said. “She’s walking the tightrope very well.”
Retail politics
But will Spanberger’s popularity carry over to Vindman? He has a national profile because of his role in the first Trump impeachment inquiry and has raised almost $14 million, but he’s also new to politics after a 25-year career in the U.S. Army. He won the Democratic primary in June in a seven-way race that included four elected officials — all women of color — in Prince William, where he has lived for eight years.
Del. Luke Torian, a Prince William Democrat, a retired minister and the first Black chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, plans to attend a church service with Vindman and Spanberger. Torian said both have engaged with the Black community after a contentious primary. “I think he’s doing well in Prince William County,” he told the Times-Dispatch.
Derrick Anderson, Vindman’s opponent, is a former Army Green Beret and a combat veteran who grew up in Spotsylvania County.
“I’m working extremely hard to campaign in every corner of this district, and that’s how I’ll represent people here,” he said in a statement on Friday.
Spanberger “understands retail politics,” said Rich Anderson, the state party chairman. “There are those who do and those who don’t, and those who do usually prevail.”
She did not endorse a candidate in the primary, but she appeared with Vindman in Fredericksburg at his first fundraiser after winning the nomination. She has campaigned with him, helped him raise money and appeared with him in campaign mailers to voters.
Vindman, in a statement on Thursday, acknowledged the importance of Spanberger’s presence in the race.
“She has demonstrated a tireless commitment to her constituents that has made her beloved by Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike,” he said. “On the campaign trail she has introduced me to many community leaders and has helped me ensure voters all across the Seventh Congressional District know I have her support and we stand united in winning this seat.”
Derrick Anderson acknowledged Spanberger’s “focus on local constituent services,” but contended that Vindman “will continue the failed policies of the past.”
Spanberger said she has helped Vindman develop relationships in the region, as she did on the fly two years ago to introduce herself to community leaders and voters in a newly drawn district.
“I think he’s done a good job of slowly and steadily trying to build coalitions,” she said. “He’s been doing the work of earning trust.”
Some of her prominent supporters have taken a publicly neutral position on the race, while engaging with both Vindman and Anderson.
“I try to help both sides,” said Culpeper Mayor Frank Reaves, who has endorsed Spanberger for governor.
Carlos Castro, owner of Todos Neighborhood Markets in Prince William and an influential member of the Hispanic community, supported her two years ago. This year, he organized a roundtable to help Vindman meet Latino business leaders but said he hasn’t taken sides.
“I know both of them,” he told the Times-Dispatch. “It’s kind of hard.”
But Castro predicted that Vindman will benefit from Spanberger’s popularity.
“I think she is going to play a big role,” he said. “She is definitely well-liked in the community.”
Chris Saxman, a former Republican delegate and director of the Virginia FREE nonpartisan political network for business leaders, doesn’t see a significant political risk to Spanberger’s campaign for governor.
“If Vindman doesn’t win, it’s probably a mark against Spanberger, but I don’t think it lasts,” Saxman told the Times-Dispatch.
Spanberger cares about the outcome, but she said it’s not something she can control.
“I’m trying to make sure he holds it,” she said. “I’m trying to help him hold it.”
“He’s doing the work.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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