MARY KATHARINE HAM: Va. Gubernatorial Race Candidate Abigail Spanberger Refuses To Side With Common Sense.
It’s 2025. Surely Democrats learned to get on the right side of these issues. But for Democrats with national aspirations, the Be Normal Challenge remains very challenging.
Enter former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who has led Republican Lt. Gov Winsome Sears by double digits throughout the year. She has been hailed as part of the great moderate hope for Democrats in the vibe shift after 2024. She is a mom who represented a swing district, and a former CIA agent. The Atlantic called her part of the Democrats’ “Patriotic Vanguard,” while the Washington Post hailed her “centrist” credentials along with a handful of other up-and-coming Democrats, whose claims rest mostly on the fact that they don’t seem allergic to the American flag.
But how normal is the Great Normie Hope in Virginia? Spanberger has said nothing about the boys suspended in Loudoun County. She has said nothing about five Northern Virginia school districts defying both Executive Orders and Virginia civil rights rules by “allow[ing] students of the opposite sex access to intimate sex-separated facilities and allow[ing] students of the opposite sex to participate in sex-separated sports.” Not just a culture-war flare-up, this is a legal issue she will have to contend with as governor, as the Trump Department of Justice will seek to pull funding for school districts that violate its Title IX rules.
It’s also not an issue that should require bravery, certainly not from an allegedly centrist leader. When polled, 70-90 percent of Americans agree that trans-identifying males should not compete in women’s sports leagues. The locker room question is less polled, but similarly lopsided.
Local ABC reporter Nick Minock asked Spanberger about locker room and sports policies, but neither she nor the campaign could muster more than this non-sequitur statement:
“Abigail is a mom of three kids in Virginia public schools — the safety of Virginia’s kids is Abigail’s top priority, and she believes that parents have the right to make decisions about what is best for their children,” said Spanberger.
We need a complete and total shutdown of the Democratic Party in Virginia until we can figure out just what the hell is going on there:
We are well into the 21st century, and Abigail Spanberger’s Democrat Party can’t shake its racist roots. pic.twitter.com/jFqRFxNtOw
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 22, 2025