Just two months into her term of office, Gov. Spanberger’s approval polling is barely above water. Her win last year was supposed to be the victory of pragmatic moderation over the voices of the far left, but since then Virginia voters seem to have realized she’s a left-wing partisan, not a moderate. Today the Washington Post has a story about this sudden turnaround.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s approval rating stands at 47 percent two months into the Democrat’s term, with 46 percent of voters disapproving and 7 percent expressing no opinion in a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
Spanberger won in a 15-point landslide last year after touting her reputation for bipartisanship built on three terms representing a conservative-leaning district in Congress. But her current ratings reflect sharp polarization among Virginia voters in their views of the state’s first female governor.
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.
So where is the “sharp polarization” coming from? It’s coming from Spanberger herself who hasn’t been content to focus on affordability and is instead focused on issues like making sure police don’t cooperate with ICE.
One of her first acts after being sworn in Jan. 17 was to issue an executive order rescinding an action by her predecessor, former governor Glenn Youngkin (R), that required state law enforcement agencies to enter into 287(g) agreements with federal immigration authorities. Those agreements deputize state officials to conduct federal immigration enforcement.
On Wednesday, Spanberger directed the state police as well as corrections officials and other state agencies to cancel any such agreements. She noted that the language of a 287(g) requires state agencies to work “under the supervision or direction” of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“As governor, I think that [state officials] should be working under … the leadership within their agencies. And so that’s a clear delineation,” Spanberger said at the news conference.
Then there was her engagement on Virginia’s redistricting.
While Spanberger had no procedural role in passing the proposed constitutional amendment, she signed a bill setting out maps that give a 10-1 edge to Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation, which now features six Democrats and five Republicans.
After a landslide victory last fall in which she carried two of the state’s red congressional districts in addition to all of the blue ones, Spanberger had insisted that Democrats could pick up seats in Virginia in this year’s midterm elections without redrawing the map. She has gradually embraced the idea that radical redistricting is needed to respond to President Donald Trump’s unprecedented demand that Republican-controlled states create red-leaning seats to help the GOP maintain its thin House majority.
“She has changed her position 180 degrees from what she said earlier,” said Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Virginia), who had a heated exchange with Spanberger about redistricting when the state’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with her in December…
“Abby Spanberger spent eight years building a brand as a ‘normal,’ mainstream Democrat — and it’s been set on fire in less than three months,” [Michael] LaRosa said. “Not just because of a relentless offense from the right but because there’s been little to no defense shaping what voters actually see.”
The result of her sudden shift from affordability to partisanship has been a significant decline in support compared to previous governors.
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)…
“Some amount of polarization is baked in, but this is unusual at this early stage of her administration and given that she had long cultivated a centrist image,” said Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, which co-sponsored the poll.
Independents are split down the middle on her performance:
Gregory Roddy, a self-described independent voter from Fairfax County who leans conservative, said he was always skeptical of Spanberger’s pitch as a bipartisan candidate. Once she was elected, Spanberger “switched over,” he said, citing her swift move to curtail Virginia’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“Now, she’s just a bot for the Democratic Party,” Roddy, 69, said.
He’s right of course. At this point, 45% of voters think her positions are too liberal. That’s only 6% of Democrats but 91% of Republicans and 44% of Independents. She has blown up her moderate branding in about 10 weeks.
Abigail Spanberger campaigned as a moderate but governs as a left-wing activist. There is no room for moderates in today’s Democrat party.
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) February 25, 2026
It’s despicable to hear Abigail Spanberger speak so plainly like a supposed moderate when she’s governing with a legislature that’s more akin to Gavin Newsom in California or, say, Maura Healy in Massachusetts
Virginia Democrats want to tax everything from dog walkers to home… pic.twitter.com/Q6Rgr1izPp
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 25, 2026
Is this the future of the party? Yes, probably so, i.e. they will continue trying to win elections by putting themselves forward as moderates. The media will go along with the ruse until a few months after the election is over, at which point they will admit the Dems are actually governing like progressives and the voters have been fooled once again.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Hot Air’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
